After a US raid last week in central Baghdad that killed the leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister criticized the US forces, saying that US forces “endanger civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and ignore the safety and lives of our citizens.”
There was more anger at a funeral on Wednesday in the holy city of Karbala for 17 slain militiamen, attended by local politicians, religious leaders and members of the Iraqi army, where their relatives emphasized the militiamen's service to Iraq.
Muhammad Kazem Abdel Hamza carried a picture of his father, Kazem Abdel Hamza, 60 years old, who was killed in the American raids. He said the United States wants to “weaken” the Iraqi militias that were formed to defeat the extremist Islamic State group nearly a decade ago. His father joined at the beginning of that battle, at the request of Iraq's highest Shiite religious leader. So did Mohammed, now 29, and three of his brothers.
Pressure is increasing on Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani to confront the United States and accelerate negotiations aimed at reducing the American military presence in Iraq. For the Biden administration, Iraq's response illustrates the challenges of maintaining the security partnership with Baghdad while containing the rapidly spreading fallout from ally Israel's war in Gaza and repelling attacks by groups allied with the Iraqi government.
Attacks on US facilities in Iraq and elsewhere began to escalate in October, as Iranian-backed groups said they would respond to the Israeli attack on Gaza. In Iraq, the attacks disturbed a rare period of calm that has lasted since the fall of 2022, when Al-Sudani took office.
On January 28, three American soldiers were killed in an attack on a base in Jordan near the Syrian border. Five days later, on February 2, the Biden administration struck targets in Syria and in the cities of Al-Qaim and Akashat in western Iraq.
For a time, there was hope that the escalation could be contained. The United States has chosen not to strike Iran directly. Kataib Hezbollah, one of the Iranian-backed armed groups, pledged on January 30 to suspend its attacks on US forces to avoid “embarrassing” the Iraqi government.
But then came the US drone strike in Baghdad last week that killed Abu Baqir al-Saadi, a senior commander in Kataib Hezbollah. Two days later, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the umbrella group that includes Kataib Hezbollah, announced that it would resume attacks on American targets.
Farhad Alaeddin, the Sudanese foreign affairs advisor, said that the Americans “blame Iran, and are talking about it.” “Yet they are carrying out attacks in Iraq.”
He said: “Iraq considers America a strategic partner, not an enemy.” We fear that pushing Iraq to the brink of abyss is a wrong strategy.”
While the groups targeted by the United States are backed by Iran, they also belong to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi umbrella militia group that has attracted thousands of volunteers to fight the Islamic State.
These groups were officially integrated into the government in 2016. PMF members receive salaries, pensions, weapons and other benefits and are accountable to the Iraqi prime minister.
Al-Saidi explained the overlapping roles. As a commander in Kataib Hezbollah, a group linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard formed after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he headed operations in Syria for the militia and was responsible for “planning and directly participating in attacks” on US forces, according to the Times. Of India. To US Central Command.
But in Iraq, Al-Saadi was also “essentially a government employee,” said Hussein Mu’nis, a member of parliament here and head of the Rights Party, a political party linked to Kataib Hezbollah. Mu'nis said he was carrying a badge indicating that he was a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces and even a “government car.”
He said: “His wife and children are all Iraqis who go to Iraqi schools.” “The problem with the United States is that they consider everyone who defends the country to be Iranian.”
Sometimes American officials have difficulty dealing with these differences. After Al-Saadi's killing, the Pentagon's press secretary disputed the idea that the US military had targeted a figure with an official role in the Iraqi government.
“As we conduct these strikes, we are very focused on Iranian-backed proxy groups and not the Popular Mobilization Forces,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Rader told reporters. When asked to clarify, he added: “As I understand it, the people we are hitting are not part of the Popular Mobilization Forces.”
The drone strike on Tower 22 in Jordan killed the first US service members in Iraq or Syria since 2020. US officials say their response targeted two groups: Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which they say are responsible for attacks on US forces. Facilities since October 7th.
But the leader of another group targeted by US strikes, the Tafuf Brigade, which also belongs to the Popular Mobilization Forces, said the men under his command did not participate in attacks against the United States. Leader Qasim Musleh told the Washington Post that Washington made a mistake by striking his group in Akashat.
“I think there is inaccurate information from the CIA and US military intelligence,” he said, speaking as the last guests were leaving the funerals in Karbala. He added that among the dead were nurses working in a medical unit, a chef, a baker, and security guards.
The Tafuf Brigade, although a military force, was not known to be on the front line of attacks against the United States, said Renad Mansour, a senior researcher at Chatham House who has studied Iraqi militias.
When a senior American defense official was asked about the American strikes on Akashat, he said that the area belongs to Iranian-backed groups that participated in attacks against American facilities. “It is a legitimate goal,” the official said.
US officials say the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has less control over the militias in Iraq than it did under former commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in early 2020. They now believe the IRGC can set standards for the militias, but under Soleimani's leadership . The replacement, Ismail Qaani, works more independently.
Mansour said that Iraq is still living the consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to kill Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the founder of Kataib Hezbollah and deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. Their killing gave rise to a “resistance dynamic” in Iraq, where militias are increasingly using violence for internal political bargaining or to pressure the United States to leave.
Regarding the militias, he added, “There is a logic to this violence,” which did not reach the level of a declaration of war. But the United States did not see it that way. He said that if there were unspoken ground rules, the killing of the three Army reservists, all members of a unit stationed in Georgia, constituted a violation of those rules.
Munis, a member of parliament, described this dynamic as a “deterrence equation,” but said that “resistance factions” in Iraq felt that their demands were not being met and that the equation had outlived its usefulness.
He added: “We are talking about war and weapons.” “Not a romantic relationship.”
Al-Sudani, the prime minister, has been left to deal with the fallout, including US strikes on his country's capital and growing demands for the withdrawal of US forces.
A senior US Defense Department official said: “There are some complexities in Iraqi society, and we understand that.” The official continued: “We realize that the Sudanese Prime Minister, whom we consider a partner, has to deal with these complexities.” “But it doesn't really change that obligation” of the Iraqi government to prevent violence against American personnel there.
“We have been obsessed with the divorce between the Iraqi security structure and these militias for a decade,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview last week. “My feeling is that the Iraqi government has deliberately relied on the militias despite our repeated offers to help them become independent.”
Iraqi analysts and officials said there was little chance that the Sudanese would confront the militias, given his weak position as well as his government's focus on providing stability and economic development for Iraqis. Some of the most powerful militias are also keen to avoid a clash that would threaten their growing political and economic influence.
Mansour said that the Iraqi government “just wants this matter to end.”
He said that before the latest escalation, Al-Sudani was on the verge of “accomplishing something very important: designing this American withdrawal” — an outcome that also piqued the interest of the Biden administration. Formal negotiations on the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces began in January.
The challenge since the beginning of the Gaza war has been that the administration “cannot appear to withdraw and retreat in a moment of weakness.”
“This is all planned,” he added. “They want a beautifully choreographed scene, where they shake hands.”
