Will Israel-Hamas war in Gaza drag Iraq back into quagmire of conflict?

Iraqis carry placards and wave the Palestinian flag during a protest in Baghdad, October 20, 2023, to express their support of the Palestinian people amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Palestinian groups. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 31 October 2023
Follow

Will Israel-Hamas war in Gaza drag Iraq back into quagmire of conflict?

  • American troops in Iraq and Syria have already come under militia attack, prompting retaliation
  • PM Al-Sudani has condemned attacks, but analysts question his ability to rein in the militias

IRBIL, IRAQI KURDISTAN: With its coffers swelled by high oil prices and its politicians laying enmities aside, Iraq looked all set to enjoy a period of stability not seen in decades. However, the Israel-Hamas war that erupted in early October could undo this modest progress, especially if it inflames the sensitive regional situation and escalates into a wider conflict.

Various Iran-backed militias across the Middle East have threatened to attack American interests in the region if Washington becomes openly involved in Israel’s ground war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These militias have already attacked bases hosting American troops in Iraq and Syria with rockets and drones in recent days.

In an analysis for the Arab Center Washington DC, Rend Al-Rahim, a former Iraqi ambassador to the US, wrote: “In the space of just over two weeks, Israel’s war on Gaza has upended Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani’s year-long careful balancing of Iraq’s foreign relations and his efforts to maintain stability in Iraq.”

The US has ordered the departure of its “non-emergency” personnel from Iraq and warned Americans not to travel to the country due to the elevated threat level. The UK has also temporarily withdrawn staff from its embassy in Baghdad and advised Britons against all travel to Iraq, aside from strictly essential trips to Iraqi Kurdistan.




US Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets, attached Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8, prepare for flight operations on the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN) 78 in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, on October 13, 2023. (AFP)

An estimated 2,500 US troops are at present based in Iraq under authorization from Baghdad, advising and training Iraqi and Kurdish forces in their ongoing fight against Daesh. Another 900 are deployed in northeast Syria, partnered with local Kurdish-led forces in their own fight against remnants of the extremist group.

Since Oct. 17, US troops have come under rocket and drone attack at Iraq’s western Ain Al-Asad airbase, Iraqi-Kurdistan’s Harir airfield, and southern Syria’s Al-Tanf garrison. Twenty-one US personnel suffered “minor injuries,” but were able to promptly resume duties, while one civilian contractor died after suffering a cardiac incident during one of these attacks.

On Thursday, the US launched “precision self-defense strikes” against two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its local affiliates. Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, described the strikes as a response to “a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups.”

These groups, including Kataib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq, and others, have threatened to step up attacks if Israel launches a major ground war against Hamas in Gaza, increasing the risk of US troops being severely injured or even killed and raising the possibility of the US military retaliating more forcefully. Such an escalation could potentially ignite an uncontrollable conflagration that could plunge Iraq back into chaos and war.

Al-Sudani has condemned the recent attacks on US troops in Iraq, branding them “unacceptable,” and has ordered state security forces to pursue the perpetrators.




An Iraqi boy carries a picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest in Baghdad, October 20, 2023, to express their support of the Palestinian people amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Palestinian groups. (AFP)

Many of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq are part of the country’s state-sanctioned paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, some of whose leaders are in Al-Sudani’s government. Despite this, Al-Sudani has little to no control over these armed groups.

“Reports are that he (Al-Sudani) warned the pro-Iran groups that if they get directly involved in Gaza, the US and Israel would retaliate against them in Iraq,” Joel Wing, author of the blog, Musings on Iraq, told Arab News. “Other than that, he is powerless to constrain them.”

Indeed, shortly after the Israel-Hamas war began, Iraqi politician Hadi Al-Amiri, leader of the Iran-linked Badr Organization, which constitutes a large part of the PMF, said: “If they (the US) intervene, we would intervene ... we will consider all American targets legitimate.”




Iraqi forces and Hashed Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) advance towards the city of Al-Qaim, in western Anbar province, on the Syrian border as they fight against remnant pockets of Daesh on November 1, 2017. (AFP)

Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, similarly believes Al-Sudani’s government would “largely be a bystander” in the event of a significant escalation, with Tehran and Washington “driving events on the ground” rather than Baghdad.

“Iraq’s diplomatic maneuvering is likely to remain very critical of Israel and even the US at times, though it doesn’t yet seem like it’ll push US troops to leave the country,” Bohl told Arab News.

INNUMBERS

  • 42m Population of Iraq.
  • 11m Size of labor force.
  • 14.19% Total unemployment rate.
  • 27.2% Youth unemployment rate.
  • 27% Public debt as a percent of GDP.

One powerful Shiite figure and militia leader who has repeatedly clashed with pro-Iran factions in Iraq is Muqtada Al-Sadr, who has already brought his followers out in force to condemn Israel. Analysts believe he may seek to leverage the present crisis to reenter politics and challenge his Iran-backed rivals.

Wing says Al-Sadr, like other political leaders in Iraq, is “hoping to exploit” the crisis in Gaza for his own ends. Indeed, the street protests he has organized in recent days potentially mark the beginning of a campaign ahead of elections in December.

Bohl agrees it seems likely that Al-Sadr will use the crisis for “at least marginal political gain.” However, he is unsure whether the issue will bring Al-Sadr back into politics since the “factors that drove him out” in the first place have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“On the other hand, if there is a major regional escalation that involves Iraq, Al-Sadr could be one of the Shiite politicians Iraq would look to for leadership as it accounted for how the country was pulled into the conflict to start with,” Bohl said.




Members of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim Al-Nujaba movement wave the Palestinian flag during a rally in Baghdad on October 8, 2023, to express their support of the “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” which was launched by Hamas militants the previous day against Israel from the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The risk of a broader conflict is considerable. Wing says some Iraqi groups are already discussing “escalating their ongoing attacks” if a ground war begins in Gaza. He predicts such an escalation would “probably mean rocket and drone strikes on the US embassy” in Baghdad.

“I’ve read that factions are split about whether to get directly involved in the conflict. And if they did, it would be with Hezbollah in Lebanon and not with Hamas in Gaza,” he said.

Bohl believes that while it remains a “potent possibility” that an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza could result in significant instability in Iraq, “there are different drivers to consider.”

“If such militias escalate against the US too much, they could trigger a regional US reaction to Iran and its proxies that would not be in Iran’s interest,” he said.

“I largely expect they’ll engage in harassment and one-off attacks rather than mass attacks designed to cause significant casualties.”




Syrians wave flags and lift a placard depicting (L to R) Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdulmalik Al-Houthi, and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a rally marking the yearly Al-Quds (Jerusalem) day, at the Al-Nayrab camp for Palestinian refugees east of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, on May 7, 2021. (AFP)

Both analysts believe the latest attacks are intended to demonstrate the capabilities of these militias to strike US forces rather than to actually inflict casualties on them.

Wing summed up the current attacks as “completely symbolic,” explaining that if these militias wanted to launch “real assaults to do damage,” they would “use dozens of rockets and drones.”

“The ongoing attacks are just shooting a few rockets and using one, two drones,” he said. “If they caused some serious US casualties, Washington would retaliate, and I don’t think the Iraqi factions want that.”

For Bohl, these are “harassing attacks on US targets designed to gain political legitimacy and signal to the US and Israel the risks of escalation by their side.”




Syrian air defense reportedly intercepting an Israeli missile in the sky over the Syrian capital Damascus on February 24, 2020. (AFP)

In February 2021, a militia rocket attack targeting the American base in Iraqi-Kurdistan’s Irbil International Airport killed a civilian contractor. The US retaliated against Iran-backed militias in Syria instead of Iraq, likely to avoid destabilizing the situation in Iraq through tit-for-tat exchanges of fire.

It is unclear whether that was the goal of Thursday’s retaliatory strikes in Syria or if the US would consider retaliation within Iraq in the future.

“I think it completely depends upon the situation, such as where the attack takes place and the nature of the US casualties,” Wing said. “The bigger the death toll of US soldiers, the bigger Washington’s response will be.”

He added: “If a lot of Americans get killed, you could expect US retaliatory strikes across Syria and Iraq. If one or two get killed, the US would probably hit an ammo dump of some Iraqi faction.”




An Iraqi supporter of the Hashed Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) forces walks past a poster depicting late Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis (R) and Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, in the capital Baghdad on December 30, 2020, ahead of the first anniversary of their killing in a US drone strike. (AFP)

Bohl also believes future US retaliatory strikes will “remain proportional and focused on the origins of the attacks” rather than “a comprehensive campaign” targeting Iran’s proxies across the region.

“But this would change if the US believed Iran was preparing for a region-wide escalation, at which point the US would likely try to prevent such an escalation with a more thorough pre-emptive campaign.”

Looking to the future, Al-Rahim, the former Iraqi diplomat and analyst, said: “What is certain is that the renewed strength of hardliners in Iraq will translate into increased Iranian interference in the country’s internal affairs and foreign policy choices.”

She expects Tehran’s regional calculations to “determine the scope and modality of belligerence by its Iraqi allies, leading to greater pressure” on Al-Sudani and his government.

 


Israeli strike hits vehicle at Beirut southern entrance: state media

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Israeli strike hits vehicle at Beirut southern entrance: state media

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported an Israeli strike on a vehicle on Beirut’s southern entrance, as the Israeli army said it hit a “terrorist” working for Iran.
According to the NNA, “an enemy drone targeted a car on the Khalde highway” south of Beirut.
The Israeli army said it “eliminated a terrorist responsible for smuggling weapons and advancing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force,” the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

Updated 3 min 53 sec ago
Follow

Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

  • He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity“
  • Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court sentenced him to five years

ALGIERS: An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced historian Mohamed Amine Belghit to five years in prison for offending national symbols, his lawyer said, after remarks questioning the existence of the native Amazigh culture.

Belghit sparked outrage in the North African country when he said in a recent interview that “the Amazigh language is an ideological project of Franco-Zionist origin,” and that “there’s no such thing as Amazigh culture.”

He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity” by targeting “symbols of the nation and the republic” as well as “disseminating hate speech,” the prosecution said at the time.

On Thursday, Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court outside the capital Algiers sentenced him to five years behind bars.

The prosecutor had requested seven years jailtime and a fine of 700,000 dinars ($5,400).

Algeria in 2016 granted official status to Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people, who are also known as Berbers.

The Berber new year celebration, Yennayer, was added in 2017 to the list of national holidays.

Belghit, a university professor, is no stranger to controversies.

His remarks often cause uproar, with critics accusing him of historical revisionism and hostility toward the Amazigh people.


Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

Updated 5 min 41 sec ago
Follow

Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

  • Abbas Araqchi made the comment a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog
  • Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’s airstrikes

Iran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday, a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
“Our cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will be channeled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons,” Araqchi wrote in a post on X.
President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday enacted the legislation passed by parliament last week to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, a move the US called “unacceptable.”
Araqchi’s comment on X was in response to a call from Germany’s Foreign Ministry urging Tehran to reverse its decision to shelve cooperation with the IAEA.
Araqchi accused Germany of “explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.”
Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’sJune 13-24 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear installations, which began a day after the UN agency’s board of governors voted to declare Tehran in violation of its obligations under the NPT.
Western powers have long suspected that Iran has sought to develop the means to build atomic bombs through its declared civilian atomic energy program. Iran has repeatedly said it is enriching uranium only for peaceful nuclear ends.
IAEA inspectors are mandated to ensure compliance with the NPT by seeking to verify that nuclear programs in treaty countries are not diverted for military purposes.
The law that went into effect on Wednesday mandates that any future inspection of Iranian nuclear sites by the IAEA needs approval by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“We are aware of these reports. The IAEA is awaiting further official information from Iran,” the Vienna-based global nuclear watchdog said in a statement.
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular briefing on Wednesday that Iran needed to cooperate fully with the IAEA without further delay.


Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament

Updated 03 July 2025
Follow

Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament

  • “A group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” PKK said
  • A PKK spokesperson said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions”

IRBIL, Iraq: A Kurdish militant group that has waged a long-running insurgency in Türkiye announced Thursday its fighters in northern Iraq will begin handing over their weapons, marking the first concrete step toward disarmament as part of a peace process.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced in May it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.

Ocalan, 76, continues to wield significant influence in the Kurdish movement despite his 25-year imprisonment. His call to end the fighting marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.

In the latest development, “a group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” the PKK said in a statement Thursday.

The ceremony, which is expected to take place between July 10 and July 12 in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, will be the first concrete move toward disarmament.

Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions and interested parties.” The number of fighters who will take part has not yet been determined but might be between 20 and 30, he said.

For the PKK to take further steps toward disarmament, he said “the regime of isolation” imposed on Öcalan in prison “has to be abolished” and “constitutional, legal and political” must be taken to “ensure that the guerrilla who have abandoned the strategy of armed struggle could be reintegrated into democratic politics in Turkiye.”

An Iraqi Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the PKK members are expected to hand over their light weapons to the regional government.

The regional government is dominated by two parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with the KDP overseeing the regional capital, Irbil, and the city of Dohuk. The PUK governs Sulaymaniyah.

The KDP has good relations with Türkiye and has been at odds with the PKK, while the PUK is closer to the PKK.

In Türkiye on Monday, Omer Celik, a spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said the PKK could begin handing over arms “within days,” but did not provide details. Celik added that Erdogan would meet with members of the pro-Kurdish party next week to discuss the peace effort.

There was no immediate statement from Türkiye’s government on Thursday’s announcement.

The PKK has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases in the area. Scores of villages have emptied as a result.

The Iraqi government in Baghdad last year announced an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been prohibited in Türkiye.


Killings rise when Gaza Health Foundation distributes aid: Analysis

Palestinian children line up to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in Nuseirat on June 30, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 03 July 2025
Follow

Killings rise when Gaza Health Foundation distributes aid: Analysis

  • Sky News finds correlation between aid drops, increased fatalities
  • UN labels GHF sites ‘death traps,’ amid claims Israeli soldiers deliberately fire at civilians

LONDON: An investigation has found an increase in deaths in Gaza correlated with aid distribution overseen by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Health Foundation.

The GHF took over humanitarian supply systems in the Palestinian enclave in May, replacing around 400 distribution sites run by other charities and NGOs with four designated facilities, called Secure Distribution Sites.

They were meant to ensure that aid did not fall into the hands of Hamas or other armed groups, which Israel alleges frequently happened under the previous UN-backed system.

However, Gaza’s health authorities say more than 600 Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid at the sites, which the UN has labeled “death traps.” Israeli soldiers have been accused of opening fire directly at civilians.

Analysis conducted by Sky News suggests that killings rise when aid is distributed by the GHF.

Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit found that an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries are reported when the GHF operates two or fewer aid distributions. That number rises almost threefold when it runs five to six aid drops. 

Sky reported that between June 5 and July 1, 77 aid distributions were conducted by the GHF. Of those, 23 — or 30 percent of the total — resulted in reports of violence, and at SDS4 half of all drops saw bloodshed.

A recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Israeli soldiers who said they were ordered to fire at crowds of unarmed Palestinians at the GHF sites.

The Israeli military denies the allegations, but said it is investigating incidents where civilians have been harmed.

The UN, in its most recent update on June 24, put the number of casualties at GHF sites at 410, citing data available from nearby hospitals.

The GHF has been severely criticized for the manner in which aid is distributed, with footage obtained by Sky on June 15 showing Palestinians at SDS1 crowding and rummaging among hundreds of scattered aid packages discarded on the floor.

Sky’s analysis found that aid is often delivered in significantly smaller quantities than required, with supplies running out on average after just nine minutes. At 23 percent of aid drops, supplies were exhausted before the official opening time. 

Sky reported that 86 percent of distributions were announced to people in the area less than 30 minutes in advance, and that maps and instructions distributed to locals to navigate and access the sites were inaccurate or dangerous, including telling civilians trying to reach SDS2, 3 and 4 to congregate inside areas labeled live combat zones by Israel.

In addition, the congregation areas are typically some distance from the sites, causing surges when they open as people attempt to cover the open ground to access the aid.

The shortest distance from a waiting point to an SDS is 689 meters, at SDS4, approximately 10 minutes away on foot — more than the average time before supplies run out.

Sam Rose, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, called the GHF’s system a “free-for-all.”

He told Sky: “What they’re doing is, they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in.”

Rose added: “They (the GHF) don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”

A group of charities and humanitarian groups on Tuesday condemned the GHF’s operations, saying they violate international principles.

More than 200 groups have called for the reinstatement of the previous aid distribution system overseen by the UN.