Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Iran is "certain" to retaliate against Israel and may use Iraqi territory to launch an attack, following a recent wave of strikes on Iranian ballistic missile and drone sites.
“The Iranian response to Israeli aggression is certain," Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, told Al Mayadeen, a news outlet linked to Lebanese Hezbollah on Thursday. "For over 40 years, we have not allowed a single attack to go unanswered and we can destroy everything Israel has."
The strikes could be launched from Iraq, US news website Axios quoted two Israeli intelligence officials as saying in a report. Their statement followed a series of warnings from Iran that it was planning a counterattack. Iran and Israel have historically clashed through proxy groups and by carrying out assassinations.
Israel killed two Iranian generals in Damascus in April, leading to a major ballistic missile and drone attack on Israel 12 days later. Another ballistic missile attack on Israel was launched on October 1, in retaliation for the killing of Iranian allies, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Carrying out an attack through pro-Iran militias in Iraq could be an attempt by Tehran to avoid another direct Israeli attack on Iran, Axios reported. Israel would almost certainly strike targets in Iraq in response, with air strikes, thought to be Israeli, reportedly killing 10 militia fighters in Syria last month.
While Iran has historically trained and armed Iraqi militias in a government-linked umbrella organisation, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, some of the groups date back to the Iran-Iraq War and were revived to fight against US and British forces following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A subset of these groups, which call themselves the Islamic Resistance, have joined Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi rebels in launching attacks on Israel. While the PMF is led by Iran-backed leaders, a small number of groups within the umbrella group do not answer to Tehran.
But PMF groups typically receive fewer long-range heavy weapons, including drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, compared with Iran’s other militia allies. The Houthis have disrupted trade in the Red Sea with a steady stream of attacks on shipping, while Hezbollah has killed more than 60 Israeli citizens, about half of them soldiers, through rocket, drone and missile attacks launched since October 8, 2023, according to AP.
Long-range weapons are necessary to strike Israel and, although Iraqi militias have claimed responsibility for drone attacks on Israeli cities, there have been few of those, compared with the waves of attacks carried out by Hezbollah and the Houthis. Most have been ineffective, although a drone attack blamed on the Islamic Resistance killed two Israeli soldiers in the occupied Golan Heights on October 4.
Iraq’s government is trying to rein in the actions of the PMF, to avoid the country being dragged into a war, despite the group having a budget of $2.6 billion, in addition to billions of dollars from official and unofficial businesses. The force is about half the size of the Iraqi army, with about 240,000 members.
"Those groups who have the rockets and drones should go to Gaza and Lebanon to fight Israel, rather than pushing Iraq towards destruction," Abdul Ameer Thuaiban, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, told Reuters.
