Iran launches ground operations in Iraq. The US withdrawal is drawing nearer

Istanbul. On 4 August, the son of a member of an exiled Iranian-Kurdish armed opposition group was shot and seriously injured near a luxury residential complex in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR). Iranian opposition factions in exile immediately blamed the attack on the Iranian intelligence services, whilst the regional government authorities had as yet not identified the alleged perpetrators as of yesterday. Several Iranian armed factions and their families have been seeking refuge in the KRG for decades. In most cases, they claim not to carry out cross-border attacks against neighbouring Iran.

The attempted murder in Erbil took place the day after a senior Iranian military officer stated that his country had recently carried out 14 ‘ground operations’ in this northern region of Iraq. Whilst attacks by drones and other means against military installations in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that host foreign troops – carried out by pro-Iranian armed factions in Iraq – have long been frequent and typically tend to increase in number and intensity during periods of regional tension, full-scale Iranian ground military operations on Iraqi territory had not been recorded on a regular basis since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88.

Hostilities continued throughout the region in early August as part of an ongoing war that began in late February, pitting the United States and Israel against Iran and its various proxy forces. On 6 August, Donald Trump stated that the war would end ‘fairly soon’. US armed forces are set to withdraw completely from Iraq – a country that shares a long border with Iran and has long been under its strong influence – by 30 September. Unlike their US counterparts, Iranian military advisers continue to be deployed at Iraqi bases, according to local sources. Cited as evidence is the killing, on 29 July, of at least four members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in joint US-Saudi air raids against positions held by Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in Diyala province.

Diyala borders Iran to the east, the Kurdistan Region to the north and Baghdad to the south-west. Many of the PMF factions and commanders have historical ties with Iran, and some fought against Iraq in the 1980–1988 war between the two countries. IRGC personnel claim that their officers were there to help ensure “security for the processions” during the Arbaeen religious pilgrimage.

Iranian operations on Iraqi territory – at least those in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north – appear to have been largely limited to assassinations in recent weeks, such as that of Soran Mohammadzadeh, a member of the exiled Iranian armed opposition group, the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK). Mohammadzadeh’s body was found in a hotel in Erbil, the capital of the KRG, on 27 June. KRG security forces stated that there was evidence that Mohammadzadeh had been stabbed to death a few days earlier.

Brigadier General Mojtaba Jafari, adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Iranian army, stated in the 3 August statement announcing the ‘ground operations’ that these had targeted ‘counter-revolutionary’ forces, killing some people and capturing others without suffering any casualties among their own ranks. In recent years, Iran has carried out numerous missile strikes on Erbil, claiming to be targeting “Israel’s strategic centre” in the capital of the Kurdistan Region. Officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government have consistently denied that Israel conducts operations on their territory. Iran is also known for its use of disinformation and psychological operations, and some observers believe that the announcement of “ground operations” was intended to divert public attention, whilst others regard it as aimed at a domestic audience.

One of Iran’s recent ‘operations’ in the mountains of northern Iraq involved the killing of a man who, according to his family, was simply a shepherd, in the Sidakhan area, amongst the mountains near the Iranian border. An Iraqi journalist who spoke to the victim’s family told Il Foglio that they maintain the young man was simply an “Iraqi-Kurdish shepherd killed whilst defending his flock”, noting that he had also documented another case: the arrest of an elderly father and his son “whilst they too were trying to defend their livestock in Sulaymaniyah”.

“In both cases,” said the Erbil-based Iraqi journalist, “these were Iraqi Kurds defending their livelihoods”, and not Iranians or people involved in political or military affairs.