Above photo: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters.
Iraqi resistance factions have been launching near-daily drone attacks against ‘vital targets’ in southern Israel.
They’re demanding an end to the US-backed wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Iraq’s State of Law coalition revealed on 16 November that Israel is under “strong pressure” from the US to prevent any response to ongoing operations in support of Palestine by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI).
“There is pressure from the United States of America on the Zionist entity to prevent it from carrying out any strikes against Iraq, for fear of straining the relationship between Baghdad and Washington, especially since there is a joint security agreement between the two countries, and for this reason, America is putting strong pressure on the entity,” Saad al-Muttalibi, a senior member of the coalition told Shafaq News.
“The Zionist entity has not yet carried out any aggressive strikes against Iraq in response to the operations of the Iraqi factions,” Muttalibi added, noting that “any Israeli strike will affect the relationship between Baghdad and Washington.”
The State of Law coalition is a vital part of the Coordination Framework (CF), a group of Shia-majority political parties that came together in mid-2022 to break a one-year political deadlock. Their alliance led to the election of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and the formation of the current Iraqi government.
Several parties within the CF have close ties with factions belonging to the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). By extension, many of these factions are part of the IRI and have been involved in the pro-Palestine operations that started late last year.
The IRI has significantly increased its attacks on targets inside the occupied territories since early October, following the expansion of the US-Israeli war on Lebanon and the ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, the Iraqi resistance announced launching at least five drone attacks on “vital” targets in Israel, including two targeting the port city of Eilat. Their statement emphasized that the operations “will continue and intensify” until the US-backed aggression in Gaza and Lebanon stops.
The escalation from the IRI against Israel came weeks after Washington and Baghdad inked a new security agreement that would see the withdrawal of the US-led “international coalition” by September 2025 and a transition to bilateral security partnerships between the two nations.
“I just want to foot-stomp the fact that this is not a withdrawal. This is a transition. It’s a transition from a coalition military mission to an expanded US-Iraqi bilateral security relationship,” a senior US official told reporters in late September.
This agreement came after months of tensions between the IRI and US troops in Iraq, which included multiple attacks on US bases and US airstrikes on several Iraqi military sites.
At the start of October, CF member Alawi Al-Bandawi revealed that Baghdad is conducting preparations in anticipation of a “possible” Israeli attack.