Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Rooters.
Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite Moslem fighters, launched at least seven drone attacks from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said.
A number of their members were drawn from the Islamic Resistance® in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the IRGC, according to the sources, who include two Iraqi military officials, another security official and five local militia commanders.
The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not previously been reported, reflects a shift in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran’s ability to project force across the region at a time when its armed proxy groups are greatly diminished, in part following years of fighting with Israel, and its own military and economic resources are depleted following the US-Israeli war with Iran, the five militia commanders said. The IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization.
Iraq, a Shi’ite-majority country, has a host of militias, many of which maintain close ties to Tehran. They form a key pillar of Iran’s regional "Axis of Resistance®," which stretches from Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
and Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel...
to Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
and Iraq.
Groups acting under the banner of Islamic Resistance® in Iraq have grabbed credit for dozens of drone and rocket attacks against American assets in the country, drawing deadly retaliatory
...
KABOOM!...
s, since the US and Israel began the war with Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iran’s proxies inside Iraq’s borders.
Several powerful Shi’ite factions there have been signaling since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics to avert an escalating conflict with the administration of US President Donald Trump
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat
The Smartest Woman in the Worldin the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets...
. That development may have spurred the IRGC to set up groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general, and two politicians from the Shi’ite governing alliance.
Two of these factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin surrendering their weapons to state authorities following repeated US warnings to Iraq’s government to disband gangs operating on its soil.
"The newer groups established by the IRGC appear smaller, more ideologically hardened and more tightly controlled, reflecting Iran’s need to conserve resources amid economic strain," said Bahadli, who is an expert on Shi’ite gangs.
US-IRAN DEAL DOES NOT ADDRESS TEHRAN’S SUPPORT FOR PROXIES
The US and Iranian presidents signed an interim agreement this week to end the war, with negotiations to follow on difficult issues like the future of Tehran’s nuclear program. But Iranian officials have said Tehran’s support for "resistance groups" — including terror groups that have waged war against Israel, and that, like Iran, overtly seek Israel’s demise — is not up for discussion, and the agreement does not address the issue.
Iran’s foreign ministry and its missions to the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
in New York and Geneva did not immediately respond to detailed questions for this article.
The US State Department reiterated "expectations that the Iraqi government takes immediate measures to dismantle all the tools of Iran’s destabilizing activities in Iraq, to include the IRGC and Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq."
At a meeting on Monday, Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, and US envoy Tom Barrack, who is also the ambassador to
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
, discussed Iraqi plans to ensure "the complete disarmament and disbandment of all gangs" operating outside Iraqi state control and to ensure "Iraqi territory cannot be used by any side to threaten regional peace," according to a joint statement.
Zaidi’s military front man, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this article.
Kuwait’s information ministry, the Saudi government communications office and the UAE foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The war in Iran has battered the world’s most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and sending inflation surging.
Tehran responded to the US-Israeli bombing campaign with missile and dronezaps across the region and by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas. The US responded by blockading Iran, though both blockades were to be lifted after the signing of the MOU.
New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unfamiliar names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone attacks targeting Kuwait, two targeting Saudi Arabia and two aimed at the UAE, the three Iraqi security sources said, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered from launch sites.
Targets included Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base, where US forces are deployed, and a military terminal at the country’s international airport, the sources said without elaborating. The attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and the UAE were intercepted, according to the sources, who could not confirm the intended targets.
Rooters could not independently verify their accounts.
AN EARLY TEST FOR IRAQ’S NEW PRIME MINISTER
Iraqi officials said the IRGC turned to the new cells to maintain plausible deniability, deflect blame from the country’s main Iran-backed groups and reduce US pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.
The Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, the officials said. The groups include elite fighters with expertise in drone operations and communications, they added.
Tehran spent decades and billions of dollars building up its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, while committing widespread atrocities and mass sexual assault, sparking a multifront war.
Israel has hammered Hamas in Gaza and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel following the October 7 attack. The Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the
Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
terror group in Yemen, also backed by Iran, likewise fired missiles and drones at Israel, and has been targeted by US, Israeli and British airstrikes. Syrian President Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
, an ally of Iran, was toppled in December 2024, cutting off an important supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Theocratic
RepublicRather than maintain a broad network of well-funded groups in Iraq, Iran now appears to be relying on a limited number of "more radicalized cadres willing to operate with leaner financial support, prioritizing loyalty, deniability and operational impact over mass recruitment," said Bahadli, the militia expert.
The new groups pose an early test for Iraq’s Zaidi, who took office last month following US pressure on the dominant alliance of Shi’ite political blocs to prevent the return of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties to Iran. Baghdad has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran, a balancing act that became more difficult during the war.
Attacks emanating from Iraq also risk unraveling Baghdad’s painstaking efforts to rebuild ties with wealthy Gulf neighbors, which have been strained since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 but had started to thaw in recent years.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE summoned Iraq’s envoys in April to protest the strikes.
Iraqi authorities are investigating whether the strikes include a May 17 drone attack that caused a fire at the Barakah ​Nuclear Power Plant, security officials said. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace from Iraq the same day, an attack the Iraqi officials said was carried out by a new group.
Zaidi condemned the two attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint inquiry with both Gulf countries to verify whether Iraqi territory was used to target them. Numan, Zaidi’s front man, did not answer questions about the status of the investigation.