Report: Israel warns Baghdad it may target Iran-backed militia; Tehran attempting to transfer missiles to Iraq

Israel has identified targets in Iraq it will strike if Iran-backed militia continue to attack Israel from there, and has warned Baghdad, the London-based Saudi Elaph news site reports.

Unnamed officials apparently tell the outlet that satellites have monitored Tehran working to transfer ballistic missiles and related equipment from Iran to Iraqi territory, with the presumed goal of using them in an expected upcoming attack on Israel.

The report says Israel is monitoring and identifying targets belonging to the Iran-backed militias, as well as Iraqi state targets, and has warned Baghdad that it must rein in the militias and stop them from using its territory to launch attacks.

Iraqi sources are said to have expressed concern that Iran is using Iraq to shift the fighting away from its own territory.

Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel in response to Jerusalem’s October 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and facilities and which Iran said killed at least five people.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iranian military facilities came weeks after the Islamic Republic’s October 1 attack, in which Iran launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, killing a Palestinian man in the West Bank.

Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground operation of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the US presidential election on Tuesday.