Ali Jayad al-Salhi, a veteran sniper in an Iraqi militia, was killed in fighting with the Islamic State group earlier this year. He was then vaulted into legend, virtually becoming a new saint for the Shia community.

Posters of al-Salhi adorn storefronts, homes and car windows in his home city of Basra and other Shia areas. One bakery even sells cakes with his face. Poems praise his valor and piety. His rifle, with which he's said to have killed nearly 400 IS militants, is now in a museum in the holiest Shiite city, Karbala.

The fervor surrounding him points to the near messianic mystique that has grown up around Iraq's Shiae militias in tandem with their increasing political and military might after they helped defeat the Islamic State group. Known as the “Popular Mobilization Forces” or “Hashed” in Arabic, the militias - many of them backed by Iran - have emerged from the war with an image among Iraq's Shia  majority as virtually a holy force. The popular aura further buttresses the Hashed as it stands poised to play a major role in post-IS Iraq. It's a stark contrast to the Sunni Muslim minority's view of the fighters. The Hashed is accused of abuses of the Sunni population in areas it seized from IS, and Sunnis see the militias as a tool for Shia powerhouse Iran to dominate Iraq.

Many Shias trumpet the Hashed as champions bringing their community out of centuries of oppression and embodying a belief central to Shiism - that victory will come from martyrdom.