Iraq Pulled Into Iran War As Tehran Expands The Battlefield

Since the United States and Israel launched their bombing campaign against Iran, Tehran has expanded the battlefield across the Middle East.

That includes in Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq, where Tehran’s proxy forces have carried out almost daily attacks against US targets, including diplomatic and military facilities, triggering retaliatory American air strikes.

Iran itself has carried out waves of missile and drone strikes in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north, where Iranian Kurdish opposition groups operate camps and offices.

The intensifying violence has threatened to destabilize Iraq, a Shi’ite-majority country of some 46 million people that is still recovering from years of insecurity following the US-led invasion in 2003 and the long conflict it set off.

“The chances of Iraq being pulled deeper into the Iran war are extremely high,” said Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank.

“That's partly a result of Tehran's influence, especially over the past two decades, where the regime has become in many ways inextricably linked with Iraqi militias.”

Explosions Rock Baghdad As Drone Strikes Target US Embassy

'Existential War'

When Israel and the United States conducted a bombing campaign in Iran in June 2025, Tehran’s proxies in Iraq largely stood on the sidelines.

But the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of Shi’ite, Iran-backed armed groups, immediately joined the fray this time.

Unlike the 12-day war last June, Iran views the current conflict as a war for survival, experts say, with Tehran using the full force of its own military capabilities and the asymmetric abilities of its proxies across the Middle East to hit back at the United States and Israel.

“The main sponsor and supporter of those groups in Iraq -- the Iranian regime -- is in an existential war right now and it is a ‘now or never’ moment for them,” said Farzin Nadimi, an Iran defense specialist at the Washington Institute.

Some of the Iran-backed groups that form the Islamic Resistance in Iraq also belong to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly pro-Iranian militias that has nominally been a part of the Iraqi army since 2016.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which rose to prominence in recent years, has launched scores of attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria since Israel began its war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The attacks by the Iraqi groups have triggered deadly US air strikes.

SEE ALSO: Iran's Network Of Proxies 'Activated' As Possible War With US Looms

Tit-For-Tat Attacks

Since the start of latest US-Israeli air campaign on Iran on February 28, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has carried out regular drone and rocket attacks on the sprawling US Embassy compound in Baghdad.

An American diplomatic and logistics center near Baghdad International Airport, which houses US troops, has also been repeatedly targeted.

Pro-Iranian groups are also suspected of firing drones toward a major US military base and consulate complex in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Kataib Hizballah, one of the most powerful members of the PMF and a US-designated terrorist group, issued a statement on March 17 demanding that every "foreign soldier" leave Iraq, where around 2,000 US military personnel are stationed.

The United States has responded by targeting PMF command centers and leaders in Iraq.

The PMF said two of its fighters were killed in two separate air strikes on March 19 near the northern city of Mosul. The group blamed the attacks on the United States and Israel.

A day earlier, the alliance said three of its fighters were killed in a suspected US air strike on a PMF command center in Anbar Province, near the border with Syria. Six PMF fighters were killed in the same area on March 16, the group said.

One the same day, reports said a strike targeted the residence of Abu Ala al-Walai, the leader of Kataib Seyyed al-Shuhada, one of the largest pro-Iranian armed groups in the PMF. Local media reported the deaths of six people, but it was unclear if Walai was among them.

Kataib Hizballah announced on March 16 that a senior commander and spokesman for the group, Abu Ali al-Askari, was killed in Baghdad, without providing details on the circumstances of his death.

Despite the US attacks, the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias retain significant fighting capabilities, according to experts.

“It's uncertain how the supply chains of Iranian weapons have been impacted” by the ongoing war, Clarke said. “But this remains a wild card for Tehran, a tripwire it can use to increase or decrease pressure.”

SEE ALSO: Amid US-Israeli Campaign, Iranian Kurds Watch And Wait

Meanwhile, Iran continues to fire drones and missiles on Iraq's Kurdish region, home to around a dozen Iranian Kurdish opposition groups who have been waging a low-level insurgency against Tehran for years.

Iranian attacks increased after reports emerged of the United States possibly supplying weapons to the Iranian Kurdish groups and supporting potential cross-border ground attacks in western Iran.

Strength Of Proxies

The PMF is made up of dozens of militias. Besides Kataib Hizballah and Kataib Seyyed al-Shuhada, prominent groups in the umbrella include Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat al-Nujaba, and the Badr Organization.

The strength of each group within the PMF varies widely, with some containing as few as 100 members and others, such as Kataib Hizballah, boasting around 10,000 fighters.

Several militias within the PMF operate as Iran’s proxies, experts say, while others are more independent.

The sway Iran held over the PMF has eroded since the 2020 killing by the United States of powerful Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force -- the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), an elite branch of Iran’s armed forces.

The Quds Force oversees Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, its loose network of proxies and militant groups against archfoes Israel and the United States. The axis includes the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah -- regarded as a terrorist organization by both Israel and the United States -- and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.