Iran's Revolutionary Guard created secret cells in Iraq to attack Gulf countries, agency says

Smoke rises from the area around the US Embassy in Bayan, Kuwait.
Reuters
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has established new covert cells in Iraq to carry out attacks against Gulf countries hosting American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.
Three or four cells, each made up of about 10 fighters Iraq's elite Shi'ite Muslims launched at least seven drone strikes from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against targets in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said. Several of their members were recruited from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of radical Shi'ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the sources, which include two Iraqi military officers, another security official and five local militia commanders.
The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not been previously reported, reflects a change in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tactics aimed at preserving Iran's ability to project force across the region at a time. in which its allied armed groups are greatly weakened and its own military and economic resources are depleted, the five militia commanders said.
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Iraq, a Shiite-majority country, has several militias, many of which maintain close ties with Tehran. They form a key pillar of Iran's regional "Axis of Resistance," which stretches from Gaza and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.
Groups operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of drone and rocket attacks on American targets in the country, triggering deadly retaliatory airstrikes, since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iranian-backed groups within Iraq's borders.
Several influential Shiite factions in the region have signaled since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics in order to avoid an escalating conflict with the government of US President Donald Trump. This development may have led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to create groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general, and two lawmakers from the ruling Shiite alliance. Two of these factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin handing over their weapons to state authorities, following repeated US warnings to the Iraqi government to dismantle armed groups operating on its territory.
"The most recent groups created by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appear smaller, more ideologically rigid and more tightly controlled, reflecting Iran's need to conserve resources amid the economic crisis," said Bahadli, an expert on Shiite armed groups.
The U.S.-Iran agreement does not address Tehran's support for paramilitary groups.
The presidents of the United States and Iran have signed it. a tentative agreement on Wednesday to end the war, with subsequent negotiations on complex issues such as the future of Iran's nuclear program. However, Iranian officials have stated that Tehran's support for "resistance groups" is not under discussion, and the agreement does not address that issue.
Iran's Foreign Ministry and its missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva did not immediately respond to detailed questions for this story.
The U.S. State Department reiterated "the expectation that the Iraqi government will take immediate steps to dismantle all instruments of Iran's destabilizing activities in Iraq, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq."
In a meeting on Monday, Iraq's new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack discussed Iraqi plans to ensure "the complete disarmament and dissolution of all armed groups" operating outside the control of the Iraqi state and to ensure that "Iraqi territory cannot be used by any of the parties to threaten regional peace," according to a joint statement.
Zaidi's military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this story.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Information, the Saudi government's communications office and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.
The war in Iran has devastated the world's most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and triggering a spike in inflation. Tehran responded to American and Israeli bombings by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas trade passes, and launching a broad campaign of drone and missile attacks against neighboring Gulf states.
New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unknown names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone strikes against Kuwait, two against Saudi Arabia and two against the United Arab Emirates, three security sources said Iraqi attacks, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence collected at launch sites.
The targets included Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base, where American forces are stationed, and a military terminal at the country's international airport, the sources said, without elaborating. The attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were intercepted, according to the sources, who were unable to confirm the intended targets.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the information provided.
An early test for Iraq's new prime minister
Iraqi officials said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned to the new cells to maintain plausible deniability, deflect blame from the country's main Iranian-backed groups and reduce U.S. pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.
Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, officials said. The groups include elite fighters with experience in drone operations and communications, they added.
Tehran has spent decades and billions of dollars building its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. US and UK airstrikes. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2024, cutting off a key supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Republic.
Rather than maintaining a broad network of well-funded groups in Iraq, Iran now appears to be relying on a limited number of "more radicalized cadres willing to operate with leaner financial support, prioritizing loyalty, deniability, and operational impact over recruitment en masse," said Bahadli, the militia expert.
The new groups represent an early test for Iraq's Zaidi, who took office last month after U.S. pressure on the ruling alliance of Shi'ite political blocs to prevent the return of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties to Iran. Baghdad has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran, a balance that has become more difficult during the war.
The Attacks from Iraq also pose a risk to Baghdad, which has struggled to rebuild ties with its wealthy Gulf neighbors, ties that had been strained since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait but had begun to improve in recent years.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates summoned Iraqi envoys in April to protest the attacks.
Iraqi authorities are investigating whether the May 17 drone attack caused a fire at the Barakah nuclear plant, is included, safety officials said. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace from Iraq on the same day, an attack that Iraqi authorities said was carried out by a new group.
Zaidi condemned both attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint investigation with the two Gulf countries to see whether Iraqi territory was used to attack them. Numan, Zaidi's spokesman, did not respond to questions about the status of the investigation.

Source: G1