IranThe Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up new secret cells in iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host US forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources said Reuters.
Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shiite Muslim fighters, launched at least seven drone strikes from desert sites near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three sources said.
A number of their members were drawn from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shiite 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 creation of the new Iraqi cells, which has not been previously reported, reflects a change in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran’s ability to project force across the region at a time when its proxy armed groups have been greatly reduced and its military and economic resources depleted, the militia’s five commanders said.
Iraq, a Shiite-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,” stretching from Gaza and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.
Groups operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed dozens of drone and missile attacks against US assets in the country, prompting deadly retaliatory airstrikes, since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iran’s representatives within Iraq’s borders.
Some powerful Shiite factions there have signaled since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics to avoid an escalating conflict with the administration of US President Donald Trump. That development may have prompted the IRGC to create groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general and two lawmakers from the Shiite ruling alliance.
Two of those factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin handing over weapons to state authorities following repeated US warnings to the Iraqi government to disband armed groups operating on its soil.
“The newer groups created 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 Shiite armed groups.
The US-Iran deal does not address Tehran’s support for proxies
The US and Iranian presidents signed an interim agreement on Wednesday to end the war, with negotiations to follow on difficult issues such as the future of Tehran’s nuclear program. But Iranian officials have said Tehran’s support for “resistance groups” is not up for debate and the deal does not address the issue.
Iran’s foreign ministry and its missions to the United Nations 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 will take immediate action to dismantle all means of Iran’s destabilizing activities in Iraq to include the IRGC and Iran-linked terrorist militias in Iraq.”
In a meeting on Monday, Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, and US envoy Tom Barrack discussed Iraqi plans to ensure the “complete disarmament and disbandment of all armed groups” operating outside the control of the Iraqi state and to ensure “Iraqi territory cannot be used by either side to threaten regional peace,” according to a joint statement.
Zaidi’s military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this article.
Kuwait’s information ministry, the Saudi government’s communications office and the UAE’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The war in Iran has hit the world’s most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and driving up inflation. Tehran responded to the US-Israeli bombing by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquid natural gas trade passes, and launching an all-out campaign of drone and missile attacks on its Gulf neighbors.
New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unknown names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone strikes targeting Kuwait, two targeting Saudi Arabia and two targeting the United Arab Emirates, the three Iraqi security sources said, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered from launch points.
The targets included Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem airbase, where US forces are stationed, and a military terminal at the country’s international airport, the sources said without giving details. The attacks targeting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were intercepted, according to sources who could not confirm the intended targets.
Reuters 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 credible denial, deflect blame from the country’s main Iranian-backed groups and reduce US pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.
Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, officials said. The groups include elite fighters with expertise in drone operations and communications, they added.
Tehran spent decades and billions of dollars building its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel has hit Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by US and British airstrikes. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2024, cutting off an important supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Republic.
Instead of maintaining a vast 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 less financial support, prioritizing loyalty, denial and operational influence over mass recruitment,” said Bahadli, the militia expert.
The new groups present an early test for Iraq’s Zaidi, who took office last month after US pressure on the dominant alliance of Shiite 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 its wealthy Gulf neighbors, which have been strained since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 but had begun to thaw in recent years.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recalled Iraqi envoys in April to protest the attacks.
Iraqi authorities are investigating whether they are involved in a May 17 drone strike 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 on the same day, an attack Iraqi officials said was carried out by a new group.
Zaidi condemned the two attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint investigation with the two Gulf countries to verify whether Iraqi territory was used to target them. Numan, Zaidi’s spokesman, did not respond to questions about the status of the investigation.
