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 the 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, in part following years of fighting with Israel, and its own military and economic resources are depleted following the US-Israeli war with Iran, the five militia commanders said. The IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization.

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,” which stretches 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 US and Israel began the war with 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 US 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 US 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........

© The Times of Israel