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Interference alignment (IA) is widely regarded as a promising interference management technique for wireless networks and its potential is most profound in interference-intensive environments. This motivates us to study IA for multicast communications in multi-hop MIMO networks, which are rich in interference by nature. We develop a set of linear constraints that can characterize a feasible design space of IA for multicast communications. The set of linear constraints constitutes a simple mathematical model of IA that allows us to conduct cross-layer multicast throughput optimization in multi-hop MIMO networks, but without getting involved into the onerous signal design at the physical layer. Based on the mathematical model of IA, we formulate a multicast throughput maximization problem and develop an approximation solution that can achieve (1−ϵ)-optimality. Simulation results show that the use of IA can significantly increase the multicast throughput in multi-hop MIMO networks and the throughput gain increases with the volume of multicast traffic and the number of antennas.