The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, targeted Eilat on Wednesday evening. It was one of a number of escalating attacks from Iraq over the past two weeks.
The militias have targeted Israel with drones and also claim to have launched cruise missiles. This is a dangerous escalation. The strike on Iraq included several drones, one of which was intercepted.
Can Israel deter the Iraqi militias? It would seem that they cannot easily be defeated because they are so large. and there are so many of them.
Basically, the Iraqi militias consist of various components of the larger Popular Mobilization Units. These are a collection of Iranian-backed groups that grew out of the war against ISIS. But many of them have deeper roots.
Kataib Hezbollah, for instance, is closely linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Some of the militias have thousands of members who make up dozens of brigades. This makes the prospect of attacking the militias a daunting proposition.
In the past, the militias have targeted US forces. After the October 7 massacre, they carried out more than 100 attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria. The US responded several times. In April, there was an explosion at the militias’ Kalsu base in Iraq’s Babil province.
The militias maintain many bases and depots in Iraq. Some of them house their rockets and drones. The militias are believed to have brought ballistic missiles to western Iraq in 2018.
The militias also maintain networks across the border in Syria to move weapons into the Middle Euphrates River Valley. This method of movement of weapons can result in an arms flow to Hezbollah.
In the past, the militias have complained of attacks harming their bases in Iraq. In 2019, for instance, there were several explosions at bases of the Hashd al-Shaabi, the Arabic name for the Popular Mobilization Units. One of the explosions targeted their camp Saqr, or “Falcon.”
Some of their bases have roots in the Saddam Hussein era or during the US role in Iraq, when the militias came to take over preexisting warehouses and depots.
Iraqi militias are spread out
The Iraqi militias have generally been so spread out that it’s hard to know where their command and control is and what would make them feel they have been deterred. The US killed Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis during the airstrike on Qasem Soleimani in 2020, for instance, but Kataib Hezbollah wasn’t deterred.
This past January, Kataib Hezbollah killed three US soldiers in Jordan. It seems messaging from Washington to Iran may have reined in the militias after that. Nevertheless, airstrikes have rarely resulted in deterring the militias.
Iran also doesn’t mind sacrificing poor Iraqis in its war against the US and Israel. Tehran is happy to send some men from the militias to die while launching drones and missiles just to prove a point.
The strike on Eilat Wednesday night had targeted “Israel’s main potash storage depot in Eilat Port,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Thursday.
“Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba’s office in Tehran in a statement announced that the Islamic Resistance targeted the warehouse of one of the Zionist regime’s strategic economic reserves in the port of Eilat, also known as Umm al-Rashrash, in the occupied territories on Wednesday evening,” the report said.
Harakat Hezbollah is a different Iraqi militia than Kataib Hezbollah. Both are proxies of Iran and work with the IRGC.
“Informed sources from inside the occupied territories also reported that due to this accurate and successful drone strike, it is not possible to export this strategic mineral from Eilat until further notice,” IRNA reported. “Potash is Israel’s most important mineral product, which the Zionist regime extracts from the Dead Sea and exports through the port of Eilat.”
The Iraqi militias clearly are expanding their war against Israel. The groups are increasingly a danger. They have long-range missiles and drones that likely would be used by Iran in the case of any escalation in Lebanon.
They have years of experience in fighting ISIS and attacking US bases. The attacks on the US bases using drones and missiles are for the most part harassment. But they have improved their weapons and their precision.