The face of homebrew, remote-controlled military robotics in Iraq is a man named Ali Hashem al-Daraji, better known by the nickname Abu Ali. In 2014 he was a policeman for Iraq's interior ministry, but in June of that year, when the Iraqi Security Forces collapsed as ISIS took over Mosul, Abu Ali hooked up with the Hashd al Shaabi, or "Popular Mobilization Units," an umbrella organization of anti-ISIS militias, some of which had also fought against US forces during the Iraq War. Before eventually returning to the Iraqi Federal Police last November, Abu Ali fought with a couple of militia organizations across Iraq, was injured by an improvised explosive device in Fallujah, and took a selfie with Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's covert-action Qods Force, in charge of Tehran's wars in Iraq and Syria and a sworn enemy of the US. "My purpose was to help the Hashd with minimal casualties," he says. Abu Ali produces little wheeled robots designed to allow troops to fire from behind cover.