Farewell Baghdad? Iran shifts to consolidate its power in Iraq - analysis

In a communication issued in the early morning hours of September 23, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq took responsibility for launching a drone at an Israeli target in the southern Golan Heights. 

According to the communique, which began with a passage from the Quran, “In response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women and the elderly, the mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted this morning an observation base of the Zionist Golani Brigade in our occupied territories, using drones. 

The Islamic Resistance confirms it will continue to destroy the strongholds of the enemy.”

A day earlier, the group claimed to have launched a drone attack at an Israeli target in the Jordan Valley. 

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is an umbrella term used by the Iraqi Shi’ite militias when describing their actions against US and Israeli targets. 

The main militia standing behind these efforts is Ktaeb Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), the most powerful and able of the cluster of militias established and supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Iraq. 

Its current actions against Israel form part of a greater consolidation of Iranian power and influence in Iraq, with implications of potentially profound importance for the strategic balance in the region. 

The direction of events in Iraq points to the country becoming a crucial hub for Iran’s project in the Arab world. 

Efforts by the Iraqi Shi’ite militias to carry out actions in support of Hamas in Gaza and fellow Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon are not new. Since November 2023, Shi’ite militias have claimed responsibility for over 100 attacks, using drones and missiles, on targets in Israel.

The majority of the projectiles launched have been brought down before reaching their targets, as was the case with the most recent attacks. 

Where this has not taken place, the damage has been minimal. The militias’ targeting has focused on Israel’s southern port of Eilat, the Golan Heights, and the northern part of the country. 

THE LATEST attacks are of particular note because they follow what appears to be the successful targeting by Israel of a senior Ktaeb Hezbollah official in Damascus on Friday. 

According to Arabic media reports, at about 5 a.m. on Friday, a car on the road to Damascus International Airport was targeted by an air strike.

One person in the car was killed, another was wounded. The dead man was named as Abu Haidar al-Khafaji, a senior official of Ktaeb Hezbollah. Notably, in a statement, the movement identified him as a “security adviser” in Damascus, and as “one of the defenders of the shrine of Sayyida Zainab.” 

Khafaji’s killing was overshadowed by the very dramatic events taking place simultaneously in Lebanon. 

Yet his removal is significant and reflects the extent to which Ktaeb Hezbollah is now clearly seen by the Israeli security establishment as an active enemy, whose officials are worthy of the attention of Israeli air power, at least when present on Syrian soil. 

Khafaji’s funeral in the Iraqi city of Najaf on Sunday received lavish attention on the social media platforms of the militias. 

The slogan “It is jihad – victory or martyrdom” was prominent in the coverage. His killing, and the involvement of the Iraqi Shi’ite militias in the ongoing efforts to strike at Israel, reflect the growing importance of Iraq in the calculations of the Iran-led regional axis, often ignored by both Israeli and Western reporting. 

Located in a  central position 

IRAQ’S GEOGRAPHICALLY central position, and the domination of the country by pro-Iran forces, position the country to form a central gathering point for Iran-associated militias. 

The US and the government of Iraq this month agreed to the outline of a plan for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq by late 2026. 

According to details of the withdrawal plan published by The Wall Street Journal, US and coalition troops based in Baghdad and western Iraq will depart by September 2025, followed by a drawdown of forces in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil by the end of 2026. 

A small residual force appears set to remain. The withdrawal agreement is set to be officially announced in the coming weeks. 

It is not clear what the planned withdrawal of forces will mean for the current US deployment in Syria. But since both deployments are officially present as part of the now largely concluded “Operation Inherent Resolve” against ISIS, the apparent direction of events does not bode well for this presence either.

Removal of these military presences will pave the way for the further absorption of the areas in question into the Iranian sphere of influence. 

In Iraq, the Iran-supported militias already have been given an official status as part of the country’s armed forces, in the framework of the Popular Mobilization Commission. 

They are present in the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. They also preside over a vast economic empire via the “Muhandis General Company,” and control the Supreme Court and Interior Ministry. 

The model for this project is neither secret nor mysterious. 

As described to me by an officer of the Badr Brigade, the oldest of the Iran-linked Iraqi militias, in the movement’s headquarters in Baghdad in 2015: “In Iran, you have the army and the IRGC, so we’ll have that here too.” As the pro-Iran element in Iraq moves forward, Baghdad is becoming a hub for the region-wide alliance. 

Both the Houthis and Hamas have opened offices in the city in recent months. Mohammed al-Hafi is Hamas’s representative. Should the movement at some point be required to leave Qatar, there is a distinct possibility that it might relocate its center of gravity to Baghdad. 

The Houthis, meanwhile, are represented by Abu Idris al-Sharafi. 

A senior official of the Yemeni Shi’ite Islamist group, Sharafi previously oversaw the Houthis’s military manufacturing projects in Yemen. 

The killing of Khafaji on the road to Damascus Airport indicates that Israel is aware of the Iraqi component in the current conflict, while not emphasizing it in public pronouncements. Since the destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, Iraq has formed an arena for the clashing of external powers, rather than a player in its own right. 

As of now, that situation appears to be showing signs of stabilizing, and not in a good way. Baghdad is returning to its former status as a focal point of power in the strategic game in the Middle East. 

Reflecting the changed circumstances of the region, however, this time the power in question is that of Iran, with Tehran’s servants entrenching and consolidating their position in Iraq.

The intention, from Tehran’s point of view, is to use the country as a transit point in the projection of Iranian power westward – via Syria and Jordan, to Lebanon, the West Bank, Israel, and the Mediterranean. The drones and UAVs currently being launched at Israel by Ktaeb Hezbollah, albeit for now largely ineffectively, represent this ambition.