The Israel-Iran shadow war is threatening to explode in Iraq
The shadow war being fought between Israel and Iran threatens to explode in Iraq, where a “complex web of non-state actors” with links to authorities in Tehran and Baghdad have warned of escalating attacks against US bases.
Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iraqi militant group and Iran-aligned militia, appeared to take responsibility for an attack against a US military base in north-eastern Syria on Sunday. At least five rockets were launched from the northern Iraqi town of Zummar towards the coalition base in Rumalyn, but no US personnel were injured, an official told Reuters.
A Telegram group affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah said on Monday that armed factions in Iraq would resume attacks against US targets in the region after a near three-month pause, but hours later another Telegram channel close to the militant group, Sabreen News, backtracked on the earlier statement, saying it was “fabricated news”.
Sunday’s attack followed an explosion overnight on Friday at the Kalso military base in central Iraq, about 39 miles south of Baghdad, used by Iranian-linked al-Hashd al-Shabi — or Popular Mobilisation Forces. The umbrella group, comprising of more than 50 mainly Shia militias including Kataib Hezbollah, fought against the so-called Islamic State terror group more than a decade ago and has since been integrated into Iraq’s regular army.
The US military has denied reports that it was behind the blasts at the base, which housed an ammunition depot and a warehouse for tanks and other weaponry.
While it remains unclear who was behind the attack at the Kalso base, which killed at least one person and injured eight others, the escalation witnessed over the weekend is part of the long-running shadow war waged between Israel and Iran and its supporters, said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, as he warned regional tensions could ignite a bigger conflict.
“This will not be the first or the last attack or counterattack as long as the war in Gaza rages,” he told i. “I think we’re going to have escalation and counter escalation which could trigger a bigger clash, a bigger confrontation, as we witnessed in the past few weeks between Iran and Israel.”
Kataib Hezbollah’s apparent retraction of its threat against the US may have been an intervention from its regional supporters, Professor Gerges suggested, as neither Iran or Iraq want any escalation with the Americans, or even with Israel.
“But from al-Hashd al-Shabi’s perspective, they had to deliver a message,” he added, pointing out that officials from the umbrella group cannot make such warnings due to its links with the Iraqi security forces.
“It’s part of this really complex web of local non-state actors and their relations to key regional states,” Professor Gerges said.
It was not the first time Kataib Hezbollah has been forced to tone down its threats – in January, the group was pushed to announce a suspension of attacks on US targets following pressure from Iran and ruling Iraqi parties who felt the faction had crossed a red line.
Washington blamed Kataib Hezbollah for a drone attack on the Jordanian-Syrian border on 28 January that killed three US troops and injured dozens more.
Since October, there have been at least 183 attacks on US military sites in Iraq and Syria, according to the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank, which has been tracking drone, rocket and missile attacks against American targets in the Middle East.
After a near three-month pause in attacks, Kataib Hezbollah appeared to threaten a resumption of strikes against American troops because of the lack of progress on talks between Washington and Baghdad to end the US-led military coalition in the country.
There are still about 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria assisting local forces, but authorities in Baghdad, a rare ally of both Tehran and Washington, has said the coalition’s presence has become a magnet for instability in the region.
The US and Iraq began formal talks in January about ending the coalition created to help the Iraqi government fight Isis. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, met the US President, Joe Biden, at the White House last week to discuss US-Iraq relations and the escalation in Middle East hostilities.
“Iraq does not want to be a theatre, a battleground, for regional and international rivalries,” said Professor Gerges.
