How will the fall of Assad impact Iranian-backed militias in Iraq? - analysis

The Assad regime’s fall will be felt across the Middle East, but one place that it could impact heavily is Iraq.

Iraq is not only a neighbor of Syria, but it is also linked to it in many ways. In the days before Assad’s fall, there were calls for Iraqi militias to intervene in the Syrian war, including Iranian-backed groups such as Kataib Hezbollah. Many of these groups have played a role in the Syrian civil war over the last decade.

Kataib Hezbollah is one of the most organized of the Iraqi militias. It used to be led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a pro-Iranian terrorist who has been involved in terrorism since the 1980s. Muhandis was killed in the US airstrike in January 2020 that also killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani. This didn’t stop Kataib Hezbollah’s threats, though. It carried out a drone attack in January 2024 that killed three US soldiers in Jordan.

Now that the Assad regime has collapsed, the Iraqi militias face a dilemma. One issue is that the militias may now lose out on the lucrative trade of smuggling Iranian arms to Hezbollah. They could also lose influence in Syria.

The militias relied on a network of safe places to secure their route to Hezbollah. These included Albukamal in Syria on the Iraqi border, as well as the Euphrates River Valley. They also relied on Deir Ezzor and Mayadin and other areas stretching to the T-4 base at Palmyra.

Now that it appears the Syrian rebel groups who overthrew Assad have taken these areas, as have the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US-backed Maghawir al-Thawra, a rebel group in Tanf, the Iranian-backed militias will lose out.

What comes next for the militias?

However, the militias may still benefit. The tribes of the Euphrates River Valley have close ties to those in the Anbar province in Iraq. They may still need to work with the militias somehow.

Another outcome for the militias could be that they lose influence in Iraq. Iraqis could be inspired by the Syrians, and they could rise up against the Iranian-backed militias. They may sense that Iran’s axis in the region has weakened. This would mean that largely Sunni tribes and cities might rise up against the militias, who are mostly Shi’ite. This is an important dynamic that may affect Iraq.

Another side of this coin is that the militias could also be weakened in Iraq’s Nineveh province or lose influence in Kirkuk and other areas. This would benefit the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq and the people of Mosul, Sinjar, and other areas. Important Iraqi tribes might play a role in this.

The SDF has seized areas on the western side of the Euphrates in the wake of the Assad regime’s fall. This could have wider impacts as well, since it came at the expense of the Iranian-backed influence corridor.