June 19 (Reuters) - Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.
Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim fighters, launched at least seven drone attacks from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said.
A number of their members were drawn from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi'ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the IRGC, according to the sources, who include two Iraqi military officials, another security official and five local militia commanders.
The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not previously been reported, reflects a shift in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran's ability to project force across the region at a time when its armed proxy groups are greatly diminished and its own military and economic resources are depleted, the five militia commanders said.
Iraq, a Shi'ite-majority country, has a host of militias, many of which maintain close ties to Tehran. They form a key pillar of Iran's regional "Axis of Resistance," stretching from Gaza and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.
Groups acting under the banner of Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of drone and rocket attacks against American assets in the country, drawing deadly retaliatory airstrikes, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iran's proxies inside Iraq's borders.
Several powerful Shi'ite factions there have been signaling since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics to avert an escalating conflict with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. That development may have spurred the IRGC to set up groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general, and two lawmakers from the Shi'ite governing alliance.
Two of these factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin surrendering their weapons to state authorities following repeated U.S. warnings to Iraq's government to disband armed groups operating on its soil.
"The newer groups established by the IRGC appear smaller, more ideologically hardened and more tightly controlled, reflecting Iran's need to conserve resources amid economic strain," said Bahadli, who is an expert on Shi'ite armed groups.
US-IRAN DEAL DOES NOT ADDRESS TEHRAN'S SUPPORT FOR PROXIES
The U.S. and Iranian presidents signed an interim agreement on Wednesday to end the war, with negotiations to follow on difficult issues like the future of Tehran's nuclear programme. But Iranian officials have said Tehran's support for "resistance groups" is not up for discussion, and the agreement does not address the 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 article.
The U.S. State Department reiterated "expectations that the Iraqi government take immediate measures to dismantle all the tools of Iran's destabilizing activities in Iraq to include the IRGC and Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq."
At 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 disbandment of all armed groups" operating outside Iraqi state control and to ensure "Iraqi territory cannot be used by any side to threaten regional peace," according to a joint statement.
Zaidi's military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this article.
Kuwait's information ministry, the Saudi government communications office and the UAE foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The war in Iran has battered the world's most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and sending inflation surging. Tehran responded to U.S.-Israeli bombing runs by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's trade in oil and liquefied natural gas passes, and launching a sweeping campaign of drone and missile strikes on Gulf neighbors.
New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unfamiliar names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone attacks targeting Kuwait, two targeting Saudi Arabia and two aimed at the UAE, the three Iraqi security sources said, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered from launch sites.
Targets included Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base, where U.S. forces are deployed, and a military terminal at the country's international airport, the sources said without elaborating. The attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and the UAE were intercepted, according to the sources who could not confirm the intended targets.
Reuters could not independently verify their accounts.
AN EARLY TEST FOR IRAQ'S NEW PRIME MINISTER
Iraqi officials said the IRGC turned to the new cells to maintain plausible deniability, deflect blame from the country's main Iran-backed groups and reduce U.S. pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.
The Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, the officials said. The groups include elite fighters with expertise in drone operations and communications, they added.
Tehran spent decades and billions of dollars building up its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel has hammered Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by U.S. and British airstrikes. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024, cutting off an important supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Republic.
Rather than maintain 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, prioritising loyalty, deniability and operational impact over mass recruitment," said Bahadli, the militia expert.
The new groups pose an early test for Iraq's Zaidi, who took office last month following U.S. pressure on the dominant 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 balancing act that became more difficult during the war.
Attacks emanating from Iraq also risk unraveling Baghdad's painstaking efforts to rebuild ties with wealthy Gulf neighbors, which have been strained since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 but had started to thaw in recent years.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE summoned Iraq's envoys in April to protest the strikes.
Iraqi authorities are investigating whether they include a May 17 drone attack that caused a fire at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant, security officials said. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace from Iraq the same day, an attack the Iraqi officials said was carried out by a new group.
Zaidi condemned the two attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint inquiry with both Gulf countries to verify whether Iraqi territory was used to target them. Numan, Zaidi's spokesman, did not answer questions about the status of the investigation.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Yousef Saba; Editing by Alexandra Zavis)
