Iran appears to have opened a new front in its war with the United States, using Iraqi territory as a staging ground for drone operations carried out by operatives who aren’t part of Iraq’s established armed factions, according to regional intelligence sources.
Lebanese and Iranian operatives entered Iraq in March and April, several regional intelligence sources told MBN, and have since overseen drone-launch operations from inside the country. The sources said the arrangement allows Tehran to strike targets without the direct involvement of Iraq’s Iran-aligned factions, though the actions could potentially expose those groups to retaliation as Baghdad moves, at the U.S.’s urging, to bring all weapons under state control.
According to preliminary intelligence gathered by the sources, most of the drones were launched from Iraq’s eastern border area. The sources said attacks targeting Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were carried out by groups led by the foreign operatives, but in a way meant to suggest that known Iraqi factions were involved.
Those operatives are believed by the sources to have carried out most of the strikes targeting Iraq’s Kurdistan region and Saudi territory, although the sources stressed that the information remains preliminary.
On Monday, the office of Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani was targeted by two drones. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Kurdistan Region’s Counter-Terrorism Directorate said the drones were launched from Iranian territory.
This was not the first time Iraq’s Kurdistan region has been targeted by drones. In the first 50 days after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began on Feb. 28, the Kurdish region came under more than 800 drone attacks, according to the regional government.
In several statements, Iran-aligned Iraqi factions have said they did not carry out any attacks in recent weeks.
A Popular Mobilization Forces source told MBN: “The head of the commission recently spoke with the Nujaba and Hezbollah factions, and they told him they had not carried out any attacks on Saudi Arabia or the Kurdistan region. They told him these were Iranian strikes.” The source added: “If they had carried out the attacks, they would not hesitate to say so.”
On April 24, Kuwaiti Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Atwan said two northern land-border posts had been targeted by two explosive-laden drones, which he described as having “come from Iraq.”
On May 17, Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said it had intercepted three drones that entered the kingdom’s airspace “from Iraqi airspace.” On the same day, the United Arab Emirates Defense Ministry said its air defenses had engaged three drones that entered “from the western border.” One struck a power generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah nuclear power plant in Al Dhafra. Abu Dhabi did not identify the source of the attack.
On July 27, Saudi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Malki said drones had attempted to target oil facilities in the Eastern Province and Riyadh and that they had “been launched from Iraqi territory and carried out by Iran-affiliated terrorist militias.” The statement was repeated the following day.
In response to the attacks on Saudi Arabia, U.S. and Saudi forces on July 29 struck Popular Mobilization Forces facilities in seven Iraqi provinces: Baghdad, Wasit, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Karbala and Diyala.
The Popular Mobilization Forces said at least 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded. U.S. Central Command said the targets were Iran-aligned forces directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Washington designates as a terrorist organization, to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure. The forces had carried out more than 20 drone attacks in the preceding days, CENTCOM said.
Five coffins draped in Iranian flags were carried through Baghdad.
The regional intelligence sources’ accounts broadly matched information from Iraqi sources describing a network of small cells with direct ties to the Revolutionary Guard that operate outside the command structures of established armed factions. The cells, according to the sources, have carried out attacks targeting Erbil and neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.
An Iraqi military source working at the embassy of an Arab country told MBN that the cells had been formed over the past several months, as some Iraqi factions began discussing the possibility of handing over their weapons to the state.
Selected members were withdrawn from major factions and divided into groups of five to 10 people, the source said. Some came from factions that had agreed in principle to surrender their weapons, while others received intensive training in Iran.
The operations of these groups do not pass through the leadership of the factions. Instead, they report directly to the Revolutionary Guard through Haji Hamed, the Guard’s chief adviser in Iraq, according to a previous MBN report.
Appearing on MBN’s “Baghdad Hour” program, security and intelligence affairs specialist Saif Raad said: “The leaders of these groups are managed by foreign commanders — Houthi commanders, Lebanese commanders and Iranian commanders as well.”
No Iraqi government agency has publicly confirmed or denied the presence of members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Iraq.
Raad’s comments come months after efforts to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon entered an implementation phase. In January, the Lebanese army said it had achieved the objectives of the first phase of its deployment in the south and the disarmament of non-state armed groups, preventing them from rebuilding their capabilities “irreversibly.”
In March, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Hezbollah’s military activities were outside the framework of Lebanese law. In June, implementation began of a “pilot areas” proposal under a framework agreement with Israel brokered by the United States.
Some Lebanese political circles circulated a proposal in May to provide a safe corridor for Hezbollah fighters and their families to Iraq. The proposal has so far remained under discussion and has not advanced beyond that stage.
Raad’s reference to the Houthis, however, is supported by developments on the ground.
On March 30, a series of U.S. airstrikes killed seven experts from Yemen’s Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, inside Iraq. The strikes targeted sites belonging to Popular Mobilization Forces factions. Reports said the strikes specifically targeted drone networks and that more than 20 Houthi military commanders were in Iraq at the time of the attacks.
The attacks came as Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi has been seeking to reposition Baghdad regionally and strengthen its ties with Washington and Arab capitals.
After the U.S.-Saudi strikes, Badr Organization leader Hadi al-Amiri largely succeeded in persuading the factions to delay a response, although they did not abandon their stated intention to retaliate.
The government’s deadline for ending the presence of weapons outside state control is Sept. 30, the same date on which the international coalition’s mission in Iraq is scheduled to end.
“We will not allow any weapons outside the state’s control after the 30th of next month,” said Sabah al-Numan, spokesman for the commander-in-chief of Iraq’s armed forces, referring to understandings reached with some factions.
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Imam Ali, both designated terrorist organizations by Washington, announced on June 2 that they were ending their affiliation with Popular Mobilization Forces formations and beginning procedures to place their weapons under state control, following a similar move by another group, Saraya al-Salam.
Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, secretary-general of Kata’ib Hezbollah, which Washington also designates as a terrorist organization, said the U.S.-Saudi bombardment was a reason to hold on to weapons rather than give them up.
As Baghdad seeks to bring weapons under state control, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard continues to control the launch of drones from or through Iraqi territory, according to an Iraqi government security official who spoke to MBN during Prime Minister Zaidi’s visit to Washington last month. Baghdad has so far been unable to bring the situation under control, the official said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
