The continued recruitment of volunteers by Iraqi militias, and their public display of missile capabilities in preparation for fighting on Iran’s behalf, point to an Iranian plan to activate its armed Iraqi proxies to confront Washington and Israel.
Over the past two years, Iran’s regional axis has suffered a near-total collapse. Its principal arm, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has been severely weakened; its ally, the regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has fallen; and dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders were killed during the twelve-day war Iran fought with Israel. Even so, the regime in Tehran refrained from openly activating its Iraqi armed proxies—until recently.
Experts and specialists on Iraqi and Iranian affairs who spoke to Alhurra believe that keeping Iraqi militias out of the twelve-day war was an attempt to protect Iran’s last remaining regional arms from U.S. and Israeli strikes. Tehran views these militias as the most important and strategic, given their proximity to Iran’s borders.
As military tensions between the United States and Iran escalate across the Middle East, Iraq has in recent weeks witnessed overt moves by Iraqi militias—most notably the Badr Organization, Kataib Hezbollah, and Harakat al-Nujaba. These groups have announced their military readiness to enter a confrontation against the United States and Israel in defense of Iran, issuing calls to those they described as “mujahideen” to prepare for an all-out war should Iran come under attack.
Last month, a militia calling itself “Awliya al-Dam” (Guardians of the Blood) released a video showing trucks carrying missiles moving through a dark tunnel, described as an underground “missile city” in Iraq.
These open and sustained preparations by Iraqi militias in support of Iran raise questions about why Tehran is activating them now—at a time when both domestic and international calls are growing to disarm these groups and end their role in Iraqi politics.
Changes to Iran’s regional influence over the past two years also suggest that its main arm, Hezbollah, is moving toward a more political than military role in Lebanon. This, in turn, raises questions about whether Iraqi militias could become Tehran’s new first line of confrontation.
Iraqi strategic expert Alaa al-Nashoua argues that Iran views Iraq as the most critical strategic nexus—security, military, political, and economic—that could play a major role in any confrontation with Washington.
“Iran considers the Iraqi arena part of its national security,” al-Nashoua told Alhurra, “given the political and security influence it wields over the levers of the state, as well as Iraq’s significant geostrategic location, which could alter certain military and security equations in the region.”
Al-Nashoua said Iran operates numerous facilities and centers affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard and the intelligence apparatus across most Iraqi provinces, in addition to a military effort embodied by armed factions supplied with Iranian weapons and equipment, including ballistic missiles and drones of all types.
He believes that, through its political, military, and intelligence leverage in Iraq, Iran could manage a large-scale regional battle affecting the Gulf states and Israel, while also targeting nearby U.S. bases—thus opening a new front to ease pressure on Tehran if it were subjected to direct U.S. attacks.
Activating Iran-aligned Iraqi factions at this time, al-Nashoua added, would push Iraq into a corner and turn it into a pretext for Iranian use in any confrontation with Washington.
There are no precise figures for the number of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq. Some estimates suggest there are nearly 70 factions operating under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, many of them linked to Tehran. Over the past years, most of these factions participated in the Syrian civil war alongside Iranian militias.
Operating under the banner “The Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” these groups also declared support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah and carried out multiple rocket attacks on targets inside Israel in 2023 and 2024, before announcing a temporary halt to attacks at the end of 2024.
As several major militias publicly declare support for Iran in any potential confrontation, other groups have either kept silent or confined themselves to statements of endorsement.
“The shift we’ve seen in the positions of some Iraqi armed groups—and their choice not to engage—indicates that no one can withstand a confrontation with the United States,” said Iraqi political researcher Rafid al-Atwani. “This is extremely serious. This time, Washington and its allies are determined to close the file on armed groups operating outside state control.”
Iran specialists and Iranian opposition figures told Alhurra during the preparation of this report that since seizing power in 1979, Iran’s ruling system has never stopped creating armed factions across the region to fight external wars on its behalf—shielding the regime from collapse and keeping conflicts away from Iran’s interior.
International strategic expert Amer al-Sabayleh considers Iran’s strategy of exporting the battlefield a failure.
“The idea of shifting the crisis into Israel and encircling it with Iranian proxies under the ‘unity of fronts’ endeavor has effectively ended,” al-Sabayleh told Alhurra. “All arenas adjacent to Israel have been contained. As for distant arenas, they were struck in Yemen. That leaves Iraq as the only remaining front in this confrontation.”
Al-Sabayleh argues that Iran cannot rely on transferring the confrontation to Iraq, because the clash will ultimately be imposed on Iran itself. Activating the Iraqi front, he said, does not prevent Iran from being targeted.
“Iran knows the coming confrontation is decisive. Activating the Iraqi front is the last card it has to play,” he added. “That’s why it feels compelled to use it—and to signal that it still has forces, capabilities, and an arsenal that could be deployed.”
He warned that any military move by Iraqi factions on Iran’s behalf would expose Iraq to direct U.S. targeting, noting that the current buildup of U.S. power in the region goes beyond Iran alone and signals a broader effort to reorder the region.
According to al-Sabayleh, Iran is left with only two intact fronts: Iraq and Yemen. Any movement by Iranian proxies inside Iraq would therefore effectively turn Iraq itself as a direct target.
The positions of Iraqi militias—most of which fall under the government-affiliated Popular Mobilization Forces—do not align with those of the Iraqi government and its officials, who continue to emphasize a policy of distancing Iraq from regional and international conflicts.
This was underscored by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani during a dialogue session at the Middle East Security and Peace Forum hosted by the American University of Duhok in the Kurdistan Region on November 18, when he stressed that “Iraq will not be an arena for any country’s influence, and we respect our relations with all states.”
Talha al-Dosari, director of the Iraq Center for Future Studies (ICFS), an independent research center focused on Iraqi affairs, considers Iraq the least affected arena for Iran’s regional influence following changes in Syria and Lebanon.
“The elevation of Iran’s Iraqi proxies to the forefront of regional confrontation—in terms of importance and readiness—reflects Tehran’s desire to showcase its remaining cards and leverage them across multiple tracks, whether in negotiations or in the context of a potential war,” al-Dosari told Alhurra.
He added that Tehran is attempting to send messages through its regional influence centers, signaling that the next round will not resemble previous ones, but will be more complex and span wider spaces and multiple fronts.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
Alhurra
