Iraq trying to reel in Iran-backed groups to prevent confrontation with Israel
Tehran said to have denied Baghdad’s requests to have pro-Iran militias in Iraq discontinue strikes on Israel and US forces in region
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Nervously watching Israel’s wars with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraq is working to avoid being drawn into the growing regional conflict as Iran-backed groups launch attacks on Israel from Iraqi soil, sources familiar with the matter say.
Two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is experiencing relative stability with high revenue from oil sales funding a service-based agenda that has turned much of the country into a construction site.
Iraq does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s government is wary of regional conflicts that could affect its delicate balancing act between Washington and Tehran, both states it is allied with.
Iran says it is committed to the destruction of Israel and supports terrorist groups throughout the Middle East in pursuit of that goal.
Axios reported late on Thursday that Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraqi territory in the coming days, possibly before the US presidential election on November 5, citing two unidentified Israeli sources.
There was no immediate Iraqi comment.
Spillover from regional conflict has already resulted in months of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed armed groups and US forces stationed in Iraq and the region that only subsided after Iran intervened in February.
Sudani’s government has not been successful in a push to convince the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — a coalition of Iran-backed militias and terror groups — to stop firing rockets and drones at Israel, according to four sources from Iran-backed groups and two government advisers.
Two visits to Iran by Iraq’s top security officials in the past two months, seeking Tehran’s help to rein in its allied Iraqi factions, failed, the sources said.
“The Iraqi delegation received a cold reception in Tehran … The answer was: those groups have their own decision and it is their call to decide how to support their brothers in Lebanon and Gaza,” a senior Iraqi security official briefed on the visits said.
Baghdad turned to Washington, asking US officials to intervene with Israel to prevent retaliation for the attacks, including one that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded more than 20 on October 4, the sources said, the first time such an attack has been reported to cause fatalities.
“Washington was understanding of the repercussions of possible Israeli strikes in Iraq and pledged to help,” an Iraqi foreign ministry official said.
A spokesperson for the US embassy in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four sources from armed groups said the Kataeb Hezbollah and Nujaba groups, which are leading the attacks on Israel, have warned the prime minister against pressuring them to halt their actions and vowed to continue their attacks as long as Israel continues its operations against Hamas and Hezbollah.
The issue has divided parties in Iraq’s ruling coalition, all of whom are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and view Israel as an enemy, though some differ over how involved Iraq should be in the regional confrontation, which erupted with the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel.
Shiite leaders discussed the risk of repercussions from attacks on Israel and possible Israeli retaliation during two meetings in October, said Ahmed Kenani, a Shiite lawmaker from the ruling alliance.
Key players in the Shiite coalition view direct confrontation with Israel as counterproductive and potentially damaging to Iraq, according to four Shiite lawmakers.
“Those groups who have the rockets and drones should go to Gaza and Lebanon to fight Israel rather than pushing Iraq toward destruction,” Iraqi PM adviser Abdul Ameer Thuaiban said.
Kataeb Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week.
Senior Iraqi security sources told Reuters ahead of that attack that any strike by Israel against Iran, outside what the sources called “the established rules of engagement,” could prompt pro-Iran armed groups to significantly expand their attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.
Mohammed Shummary, chairman of Baghdad-based think tank the Sumeria Foundation, said growing regional conflict risked pulling Iraq’s Shiite Muslim parties, many of them heavily armed, into a confrontation that few initially had an appetite for.
“They are torn between maintaining their decision to keep Iraq out of the confrontation and their ideological and political commitments toward the Shia of Lebanon and the broader resistance axis, amid Israeli aggression that has crossed all permissible red lines,” he told Reuters.
“If the confrontation escalates… this may not only mean the continuation of attacks on Israeli targets but also the potential involvement of additional factions in larger, more complex operations,” he said.