The U.S. military launched a series of air and missile strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Feb. 2, 2024 in retaliation for a suicide drone attack that killed three American soldiers and injured dozens more at a remote base in Jordan on January 28.
The strikes, which are expected to continue, were also meant to deter further attacks by Iran-backed groups, which have targeted Americans in Iraq and Syria more than 160 times since the Israel-Gaza war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023.
U.S. President Joe Biden has stated that the U.S. is not seeking a wider war with Iran or anyone else in the Middle East. Iran has also signaled its preference for a limited exchange. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian stated on X/Twitter: “The White House is well aware that the path to resolving the current war and crisis in the region is through political means.”
However, Akram al-Kaabi, leader of Harakat Al-Nujaba, a prominent Iran-backed Iraqi militia, signaled a divergent stance with a declaration on Feb. 2 that “any [U.S.] strike will meet with an appropriate response.” This underscores the group’s commitment to continue operations against Americans until the U.S. withdraws its 2,500 troops from Iraq and Israel stops bombarding Gaza.
Concurrently, Syrian television reported a fire at the U.S. military base in the Koniko natural gas field in northeast Deir ez-Zor.
Over years of animosity and shadow conflict between the U.S. and Iran, there have been unwritten red lines, most prominently that Iran and its proxies should not kill Americans. Even in January 2020, after a U.S. drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most significant military figure, the Iranian response did not result in any U.S. fatalities. Iran alerted Iraqi officials in advance that it was going to attack a base housing Americans, who promptly sought shelter.
However, the assassination of Soleimani significantly impacted Iran’s ability to mobilize and coordinate extremist militias across the Middle East. Soleimani was a seasoned general with extensive connections to militias from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. Indeed, Soleimani is credited with developing the notion of an “Axis of Resistance,” combining militias throughout the region to combat the U.S. military presence in the Middle East.
Still, the relationship between Iran and its proxies is not one-way. Mohammad Khajouei, an Iranian journalist and political analyst, told this author that “the relationship between Iran and these militias is not purely hierarchical; these groups despite sharing regional strategies and being ideologically aligned with Iran, sometimes demonstrate a degree of independence.”
U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed that Tehran’s control over its Middle Eastern proxies has diminished since Soleimani’s death. For example, Tehran is believed to have had no forewarning of Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which touched off a massive Israeli response.
The death of American soldiers led Tehran to scramble to try to rein in Kataib Hezbollah, the group believed responsible for the lethal strike on the U.S. base on the Jordan-Syria border. Kataib Hezbollah announced on January 30 that it was suspending operations against U.S. forces in the region. The announcement followed a visit to Baghdad by Gen. Ismail Ghaani, Soleimani’s successor as commander of the Quds Force, the external arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Kataib Hezbollah was established in 2003 by Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who was assassinated alongside Soleimani in 2020. Like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, all of which receive support from Iran, Kataib Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Despite the common perception that Tehran exercises full control over all these groups, the reality is more nuanced. There is a diversity of ideologies and religious identities, including Sunni-Shi’ite and intra-Shi’ite differences.
This diversity has resulted in uneven and sometimes tenuous ties between Iran and its regional allies. Unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon, widely viewed as the most powerful economic, military and political actor in that country, scattered Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq lack cohesion. Other groups also act according to their own interests and ideology.
Hamas’s relations with Iran have been particularly fraught. The Sunni Muslim group, an offshoot of Egypt’s venerable Muslim Brotherhood, saw new prominence during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings which briefly brought the Brotherhood to power in Egypt and Tunisia. When civil war broke out in Syria, Hamas sided with the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, in a clear break with Iran, which came to Assad’s defense.
Supporting the revolt also positioned Hamas in opposition to Lebanese Shi’ite groups, including Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, which have traditionally backed Assad’s regime in alignment with Iran’s regional policies.
Likewise, the Houthis in Yemen, though closer to Iran due to their Shi’ite identity, adhere to Zaydism—a branch distinct from the Twelver Shi’ism dominant in Iran. Sectarian differences pose challenges to transforming the Houthis into a full-scale proxy akin to Hezbollah and it is unclear whether Iran, despite arming and training the Houthis, can stop them from targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
The relationship between Iraqi Shi’ite groups and Iran is also complicated. The militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr harbors both anti-American and anti-Iran sentiments and has risen up in defense of Iraqi nationalism against Iraq’s Iran-backed governments. Other Twelver Shi’ite militias in Iraq, such as Kataib Hezbollah, Saraya al-Khorasani, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, exhibit closer ties to Iran, albeit to varying degrees.
By targeting American interests, these groups aim to improve their standing vis-à-vis other factions. Their ultimate goals include pushing U.S. forces out of Iraq to enhance their influence over the Iraqi state.
“Unlike Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which exhibits organized and professional behavior, the militias in Iraq each claim their own leadership. Despite sharing ideologies and strategic goals, such as opposing U.S. presence in Iraq, they experience internal conflicts,” Khajouei said.
The assassination of Naji al-Kaabi, a senior leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, by unknown gunmen in Iraq’s Maysan province on February 4, illustrates the complexity of the situation in Iraq. This armed group has been in conflict with other Iraqi Shiite factions, including the Sadrist movement and Kata’ib al-Imam Ali.
Former Iranian diplomat Hossein Mousavian, a research scholar at Princeton University, told the author that in his view, “The recent attacks against Israel and the American military were independently decided by the militia groups themselves. However, Iran finds itself unable to dissuade these actions, as doing so would contradict the numerous slogans and positions it has publicly adopted.”
Iran appears to have been caught flat-footed by the crisis in the Middle East. It has sought to claim credit for the Hamas onslaught on Israel while avoiding retribution and preserving key allies such as Hezbollah to use in the event of a wider war. But Iran’s ties to these groups could backfire if they reject Tehran’s demands and pursue their own agendas. Their violent acts give Iran power but also alienate U.S.-backed Arab countries and contribute to the depiction of Iran as a pariah state.
Mohammad Mazhari is a political scientist who served as editor-in-chief of the Arabic Mehr News Agency from 2013-2020 and as a journalist at the Tehran Times from 2020-2021. Twitter/X: @epicoria
Is Iran Losing its Control Over Shi’ite Militias?
By Mohammad Mazhari
Middle East & North Africa
The U.S. military launched a series of air and missile strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Feb. 2, 2024 in retaliation for a suicide drone attack that killed three American soldiers and injured dozens more at a remote base in Jordan on January 28.
The strikes, which are expected to continue, were also meant to deter further attacks by Iran-backed groups, which have targeted Americans in Iraq and Syria more than 160 times since the Israel-Gaza war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023.
U.S. President Joe Biden has stated that the U.S. is not seeking a wider war with Iran or anyone else in the Middle East. Iran has also signaled its preference for a limited exchange. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian stated on X/Twitter: “The White House is well aware that the path to resolving the current war and crisis in the region is through political means.”
However, Akram al-Kaabi, leader of Harakat Al-Nujaba, a prominent Iran-backed Iraqi militia, signaled a divergent stance with a declaration on Feb. 2 that “any [U.S.] strike will meet with an appropriate response.” This underscores the group’s commitment to continue operations against Americans until the U.S. withdraws its 2,500 troops from Iraq and Israel stops bombarding Gaza.
Concurrently, Syrian television reported a fire at the U.S. military base in the Koniko natural gas field in northeast Deir ez-Zor.
Over years of animosity and shadow conflict between the U.S. and Iran, there have been unwritten red lines, most prominently that Iran and its proxies should not kill Americans. Even in January 2020, after a U.S. drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most significant military figure, the Iranian response did not result in any U.S. fatalities. Iran alerted Iraqi officials in advance that it was going to attack a base housing Americans, who promptly sought shelter.
However, the assassination of Soleimani significantly impacted Iran’s ability to mobilize and coordinate extremist militias across the Middle East. Soleimani was a seasoned general with extensive connections to militias from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. Indeed, Soleimani is credited with developing the notion of an “Axis of Resistance,” combining militias throughout the region to combat the U.S. military presence in the Middle East.
Still, the relationship between Iran and its proxies is not one-way. Mohammad Khajouei, an Iranian journalist and political analyst, told this author that “the relationship between Iran and these militias is not purely hierarchical; these groups despite sharing regional strategies and being ideologically aligned with Iran, sometimes demonstrate a degree of independence.”
U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed that Tehran’s control over its Middle Eastern proxies has diminished since Soleimani’s death. For example, Tehran is believed to have had no forewarning of Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which touched off a massive Israeli response.
The death of American soldiers led Tehran to scramble to try to rein in Kataib Hezbollah, the group believed responsible for the lethal strike on the U.S. base on the Jordan-Syria border. Kataib Hezbollah announced on January 30 that it was suspending operations against U.S. forces in the region. The announcement followed a visit to Baghdad by Gen. Ismail Ghaani, Soleimani’s successor as commander of the Quds Force, the external arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Kataib Hezbollah was established in 2003 by Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who was assassinated alongside Soleimani in 2020. Like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, all of which receive support from Iran, Kataib Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Despite the common perception that Tehran exercises full control over all these groups, the reality is more nuanced. There is a diversity of ideologies and religious identities, including Sunni-Shi’ite and intra-Shi’ite differences.
This diversity has resulted in uneven and sometimes tenuous ties between Iran and its regional allies. Unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon, widely viewed as the most powerful economic, military and political actor in that country, scattered Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq lack cohesion. Other groups also act according to their own interests and ideology.
Hamas’s relations with Iran have been particularly fraught. The Sunni Muslim group, an offshoot of Egypt’s venerable Muslim Brotherhood, saw new prominence during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings which briefly brought the Brotherhood to power in Egypt and Tunisia. When civil war broke out in Syria, Hamas sided with the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, in a clear break with Iran, which came to Assad’s defense.
Supporting the revolt also positioned Hamas in opposition to Lebanese Shi’ite groups, including Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, which have traditionally backed Assad’s regime in alignment with Iran’s regional policies.
Likewise, the Houthis in Yemen, though closer to Iran due to their Shi’ite identity, adhere to Zaydism—a branch distinct from the Twelver Shi’ism dominant in Iran. Sectarian differences pose challenges to transforming the Houthis into a full-scale proxy akin to Hezbollah and it is unclear whether Iran, despite arming and training the Houthis, can stop them from targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
The relationship between Iraqi Shi’ite groups and Iran is also complicated. The militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr harbors both anti-American and anti-Iran sentiments and has risen up in defense of Iraqi nationalism against Iraq’s Iran-backed governments. Other Twelver Shi’ite militias in Iraq, such as Kataib Hezbollah, Saraya al-Khorasani, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, exhibit closer ties to Iran, albeit to varying degrees.
By targeting American interests, these groups aim to improve their standing vis-à-vis other factions. Their ultimate goals include pushing U.S. forces out of Iraq to enhance their influence over the Iraqi state.
“Unlike Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which exhibits organized and professional behavior, the militias in Iraq each claim their own leadership. Despite sharing ideologies and strategic goals, such as opposing U.S. presence in Iraq, they experience internal conflicts,” Khajouei said.
The assassination of Naji al-Kaabi, a senior leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, by unknown gunmen in Iraq’s Maysan province on February 4, illustrates the complexity of the situation in Iraq. This armed group has been in conflict with other Iraqi Shiite factions, including the Sadrist movement and Kata’ib al-Imam Ali.
Former Iranian diplomat Hossein Mousavian, a research scholar at Princeton University, told the author that in his view, “The recent attacks against Israel and the American military were independently decided by the militia groups themselves. However, Iran finds itself unable to dissuade these actions, as doing so would contradict the numerous slogans and positions it has publicly adopted.”
Iran appears to have been caught flat-footed by the crisis in the Middle East. It has sought to claim credit for the Hamas onslaught on Israel while avoiding retribution and preserving key allies such as Hezbollah to use in the event of a wider war. But Iran’s ties to these groups could backfire if they reject Tehran’s demands and pursue their own agendas. Their violent acts give Iran power but also alienate U.S.-backed Arab countries and contribute to the depiction of Iran as a pariah state.
Mohammad Mazhari is a political scientist who served as editor-in-chief of the Arabic Mehr News Agency from 2013-2020 and as a journalist at the Tehran Times from 2020-2021. Twitter/X: @epicoria
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