Gaza war: Iran fears losing control over the Shiite militias in Iraq

Armed Shiite organizations in Iraq, supported by Iran, have increased the firing of rockets and missiles at Israel in recent weeks. Although the attacks, often from a distance of hundreds of kilometers, are not perceived by Israeli and Western sources as posing the same level of threat to Israel as point-of-care attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, they are increasing in scope and sophistication and raise concerns about a possible regional escalation.

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Most of the missiles in question were intercepted by the Israeli and US air defense systems, but at least two of them hit their targets.

The Reuters news agency presents interviews with more than a dozen people, including sources in Iraqi armed groups and other factions in the network along the Iranian axis, alongside US and other regional officials.

A senior official in the Iranian axis said that the Iraqi attacks “could drag the axis into an event that it is not interested in getting into at this time.” Hussein al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the al-Nujaba movement, one of the main armed Shia factions in Iraq that participates in attacks on Israel, told Reuters that the attacks are a natural development of the role of the Iraqi militias and their aim is to raise the price of the war in Gaza. They intend to strike from anywhere, as long as it is necessary.

“The operations carried out by the resistance are not bound by temporal or spatial boundaries,” Mousavi said. “We, as the opposition, are not afraid of the consequences as long as we are on the right and we represent the popular and official will.”

The Iraqi government, which carefully balances its alliances with Washington and Tehran, does not officially sanction the attacks but has failed or (did not try) to stop them. Critics claim that this shows the limitations of the Iraqi government’s power in the face of the armed militias supported by Iran. They claim that this could undermine efforts to restore Iraq’s economic and political stability.

Iraq, as we know, does not recognize the State of Israel and even passed a law in 2022 that can sentence those who try to normalize relations with Israel to death or life imprisonment.

The attacks of the Iraqi groups against Israel are carried out from areas south of Baghdad and in the Iraqi-Syrian border area, which are controlled by the factions supported by Iran. While Iran was eager for the Iraqi factions to join active fighting against Israel, the Iraqis’ tendency to miscalculate was a constant cause for concern, the official told Reuters. He noted that the Iraqi groups had already inadvertently caused a major regional escalation in January, when they killed three American soldiers in a drone attack on an American outpost in Jordan.

This attack, which crossed red lines both for the United States and at the regional level in the context of harming American soldiers in a neighboring Arab country – led to a massive wave of airstrikes by the United States in Iraq and Syria. This point posed such a serious danger of regional escalation that the commander of Iran’s Quds Force went to Baghdad to ask the factions to stop the attacks.

An Iranian official who spoke anonymously to the Reuters news agency said that this change in focus is part of a plan to maintain pressure on Israel in the war in Gaza. A senior US military official, who also spoke anonymously, said that the attacks on Israel endangered the stability of Iraq and the entire region, while increasing the risk of a potential response from the US and Israel. “The sophistication and frequency of these attacks underscores the threat of escalation posed by these groups,” the official said, adding: “The US military will not hesitate to act to protect our forces and support the defense of our allies.”