Phillip Smyth is an expert in Shia militia groups, Iranian external operations, and other Iranian proxy groups. He has lived in Lebanon and has also worked as a researcher for the University of Maryland, with the Atlantic Council, and was a fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Through a combination of field work and open-source analysis, his work has uncovered and analyzed Iran’s recruitment and deployment of Afghan, Azeri, Bahraini, West African, Pakistani, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Syrian Shia militiamen in Syria and Iraq. From 2013 to 2016, he authored Hizballah Cavalcade on Jihadology.net, which focused on assessing new Shia militant groups and trends associated with them in the Middle East. He also authored the first profiles of numerous Iraqi, Syrian, and Bahraini Shia militant groups. Smyth has testified in front of Congress and has briefed various branches of the US government.