As of: February 12, 2024, 12:35 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is under increasing pressure to confront the United States.
© Iranian Presidency/Imago
The US retaliation against militias after the deaths of three soldiers poses problems for the Iraqi government.
Washington angers an ally.
Karbala - U.S. officials say recent airstrikes in Syria and Iraq have dealt a devastating blow to a dangerous adversary: Iran.
They said they punished Iran's notorious Quds Force and allied militias for deadly attacks on US troops and sent a strong message of deterrence.
In Iraq, however, the attacks have provoked a very different reaction - and put the Iraqi government, a key U.S. regional partner, in an awkward position.
Many see it as the latest U.S. attack on Iraq's independence, a threat to fragile stability and a willful disregard for a complex reality: Many of the country's mainly Shiite militias are backed by rival Iran, but are also deeply connected to Iraqi society, Politics and government intertwined.
“Endangering internal peace”: US attack in Baghdad puts Iraqi government under pressure
After a U.S. strike in the middle of Baghdad killed a leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia last week, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister railed that U.S. forces "endanger domestic peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty and disregard our security and lives." Citizens".
At the funeral of 17 other slain militiamen on Wednesday in the holy city of Karbala, attended by local politicians, religious leaders and members of the Iraqi military, relatives expressed anger and emphasized the militiamen's service to Iraq.
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
Mohammed Qadim Abed Hamza held a portrait of his 60-year-old father, Kadhim Abed al-Hamza, who was killed in the US strikes.
“The United States, he said, wants to weaken the Iraqi militias” that were formed nearly a decade ago to defeat the Islamic State extremist group.
His father joined at the beginning of this fight at the urging of Iraq's top Shiite religious leader.
Just like Mohammed, now 29, and three of his brothers.
After the death of three US soldiers in Jordan – retaliatory strikes by the USA
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is under increasing pressure to confront the United States and speed up negotiations to reduce the US military presence in Iraq.
For Joe Biden's administration, the Iraqi response shows how difficult it is to maintain a security partnership with Baghdad while containing the rapidly spreading fallout from the war in Gaza and fending off attacks from groups allied with the Iraqi government.
My news
NATO response to Putin's air strikes: Experts fear rapid reading
1 hour ago
ZDF woman asks Lindner about the traffic lights - then he bursts out: "You understand, that's a problem."
Ukrainian secret service sure: Russia uses Starlink on the front read
Emergency situation for Putin's troops: Swedish tank mixes up the front
“We are meat” – soldiers beg Putin for compassion from cellars
In just two sentences: German Russia expert exposes Putin after reading an interview
Attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq and elsewhere increased in October as Iranian-backed groups said they would retaliate for Israel's offensive in Gaza.
In Iraq, the attacks disrupted a rare period of calm that had lasted since the fall of 2022, when Sudani took office.
On January 28, three US 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 the western Iraqi cities of al-Qaim and Akashat.
For a while there was hope that the escalation could be contained.
The United States had decided not to attack Iran directly.
And Kataib Hezbollah, one of the Iranian-backed militant groups, pledged on January 30 to stop its attacks on American troops so as not to “embarrass” the Iraqi government.
US military kills militia leader in drone strike in Baghdad
But then came the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad last week that killed Abu Baqir al-Saedi, a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander.
Two days later, the Islamic resistance in Iraq, which includes Kataib Hezbollah, announced that it would resume attacks on US targets.
The Americans “blame Iran, and they talk about Iran,” said Farhad Alaaldin, a foreign policy adviser to Sudani.
“Yet they carry out attacks in Iraq.”
“Iraq sees America as a strategic partner and not an enemy,” he said.
“We fear that pushing Iraq to the sidelines is the wrong strategy.”
While the groups targeted by the United States are backed by Iran, they are also part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi umbrella organization for militias that has attracted thousands of volunteers to fight the Islamic State.
The groups were formally integrated into the government in 2016.
PMF members receive salaries, pensions, weapons and other benefits and report to the Prime Minister of Iraq.
Turmoil after deadly US attack: militia leader or government employee?
Saedi illustrated the overlapping roles.
As the leader of Kataib Hezbollah, a group affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that was formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he led the militia's Syria operations and was, according to U.S. Central Command for the " “direct planning and participation in attacks” on US troops.
But even in Iraq, Saedi was “basically a government employee,” said Hussein Mounes, a member of parliament and leader of Huquq, a political party linked to Kataib Hezbollah.
He had an ID card identifying him as a member of the PMF and even a “government vehicle,” according to Mounes.
“His wife, his children, they are all Iraqis and go to Iraqi schools,” he said.
“The problem with the United States is that they consider anyone who defends the country to be Iranian.”
U.S. officials sometimes have difficulty making the distinction.
After Saedi's killing, the Pentagon press secretary pushed back against claims that the U.S. military had targeted a person holding an official position in the Iraqi government.
“Our strikes are focused on Iran-backed proxy groups, not the PMF,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters.
When asked, he added: “As far as I know, the people we are attacking are not part of the PMF.”
'It's a legitimate target': US official justifies retaliatory strikes in Iran
The drone strike at Tower 22 in Jordan was the first death among U.S. soldiers in Iraq or Syria since 2020. U.S. officials say their response targeted two groups: Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which were responsible for the attacks US facilities have been responsible since October 7th.
However, the leader of another group, the Tafuf Brigade, also part of the PMF, said that the men under his command were not involved in the attacks on the United States.
The leader, Qassim Muslih, told the Washington Post that Washington made a mistake by attacking his group in Akashat.
"I believe that the CIA and US military intelligence have spread false information," he said as the last guests left the funeral in Karbala.
The dead included nurses working in a medical unit, a cook, a baker and security guards.
Renad Mansour, a senior researcher at Chatham House who has studied Iraqi militias, said that while the Tafuf Brigade is a military force, it is not known for carrying out front-line attacks against the United States.
A senior U.S. defense official asked about the U.S. strikes on Akashat said the area was linked to Iranian-backed groups that had been involved in attacks on U.S. facilities.
“It’s a legitimate target,” the official said.
U.S. officials say Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has less control over militias in Iraq than it did under its former chief Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in early 2020.
They now believe that the IRGC can direct the militias as they operate more autonomously under Soleimani's successor, Ismail Qaani.
Iraq is living with the consequences of the Trump administration
Iraq is still living with the fallout from the Trump administration's decision to kill Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a founder of Kataib Hezbollah and deputy leader of the PMF, Mansour said.
Her death triggered a “resistance dynamic” in Iraq, in which the militias increasingly used violence for domestic political negotiations or to demand the withdrawal of the United States.
For the militias, he added, “this violence has a logic” that does not amount to a declaration of war.
But the United States didn't see it that way.
If there are unspoken ground rules, Mounes said, then the killing of the three reservists, all of whom belonged to a unit stationed in Georgia, violated those rules.
Rep. Mounes called the dynamic a "deterrence equation," but said Iraqi "resistance groups" felt their demands had not been met and the equation had outlived its usefulness.
“We’re talking about war and weapons here,” he said.
“Not about a romantic relationship.”
Iraq's Prime Minister Sudani must master complex situation
Sudani, the prime minister, is dealing with the fallout, including U.S. attacks on his country's capital and increasing calls for a withdrawal of American troops.
“There are some complexities in Iraqi society that we understand,” the senior U.S. defense official said.
“We understand that Prime Minister Sudani, whom we consider a partner, has to manage these complexities,” the official continued.
“But that doesn’t change the Iraqi government’s commitment” to preventing violence against U.S. personnel.
“We've been obsessed with a separation between the Iraqi security structure and these militias for a decade,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview last week.
“I feel that the Iraqi government has willingly made itself dependent on the militias, despite our repeated offers to help them become independent.”
Iraqi analysts and officials said there was little chance Sudani would confront the militias because of his weak position but also because his government wants to provide Iraqis with stability and economic development.
Some of the most powerful militias are also keen to avoid a clash that would threaten their growing political and economic influence.
The Iraqi government “just wants it to be over,” Mansour said.
After US attacks: Difficult relations between USA and Iraq
Before the recent escalations, Sudani was prepared to “accomplish something very important: choreograph the withdrawal of the Americans” – an outcome that the Biden administration was also interested in, he added.
Formal negotiations over the withdrawal of US-led coalition troops began in January.
The Biden administration has not said what specific results it hopes to achieve from these talks, but Washington is likely to push for a continued military presence in some form.
The challenge since the start of the Gaza war has been that the government “must not give the impression that it is retreating in a moment of weakness.”
“It’s all planned,” he said.
“They want a beautifully choreographed scene where they shake hands.”
To the authors
Kareem Fahim
is Istanbul bureau chief and Middle East correspondent at The Washington Post.
He previously worked for the New York Times for 11 years and, among other things, reported on the Arab world as a correspondent from Cairo.
Kareem also worked as a reporter at the Village Voice.
Mustafa Salim
is a reporter in the Washington Post's Baghdad bureau.
He has worked for the newspaper since 2014, covering the rise of the Islamic State and the Iraqi military campaign to combat it.
Abigail Hauslohner
is a national security reporter at The Washington Post focusing on Congress.
In her decade at the paper, she served as a correspondent, writing on topics ranging from immigration to political extremism, and covered the Middle East as the Post's Cairo bureau chief.
Missy Ryan
writes about national security and defense for The Washington Post.
She has worked for the Post since 2014 and has written about the Pentagon and the State Department.
She has reported from Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 11, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.