On March 6, the Coordination Committee of the Iraqi Resistance (CCIR) issued an ultimatum over recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon: Stop bombing the southern Dahiyeh suburbs of Beirut (a known Hezbollah stronghold), or face threats against regional embassies and American energy infrastructure. The next day, Reuters reported that Katyusha rockets targeted the US embassy in Baghdad. Footage uploaded on social media reportedly showed American air defenses attempting to shoot down an incoming threat.
In what may be an escalation of the multi-front war between Israel, the US, Iran, and its proxies, the CCIR, a loosely coordinated body made up of Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq that align messaging, threats, and occasionally operations, warned that actors attacking Beirut’s Dahiyeh would face “a threat to the security of the embassies of the attacking states.” Furthermore, the CCIR said that the same threat faced American oil companies operating in the Arabian Peninsula.
The CCIR framed the warning as a response to Israeli strikes against civilians in the densely populated Dahiyeh suburbs. “Either security for all, or security for none,” the statement said. While the CCIR did not explicitly identify the actor responsible for strikes on the Dahiyeh, Israel is the only known military acting kinetically against Hezbollah and the Iran-led axis in Lebanon.
Since Hezbollah entered the war on behalf of Iran on March 2, the Lebanon-based group has executed daily cross-border attacks against the Jewish state. In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has carried out over 500 strikes in Lebanon, mostly aimed at Hezbollah personnel and infrastructure. On March 5, the IDF issued an evacuation order for Beirut’s Dahiyeh, warning of imminent attacks against Hezbollah positions in the area.
Since the war between Iran and the US and Israel began, Iraqi militias operating under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) banner have repeatedly attacked American military bases in Iraq and the region, including Jordan’s Muwafak al Sulti Air Base, a key hub for US military aircraft. Like the CCIR, the IRI is an umbrella group composed of Iran-backed Shiite militias. However, while the CCIR primarily serves as a political and messaging forum for these organizations, the IRI banner is typically attached to specific claims of attacks.
Hezbollah’s Iraqi connection
Many of the figures who would later coalesce under the umbrella of Hezbollah were initially affiliated with Mohammad Baqir al Sadr’s Pro-Khomeinist Iraqi Dawa Party and its Lebanese branch, including former Hezbollah Secretaries-General Subhi al Tufayli and Abbas al Musawi. The student branch of Dawa’s Lebanese arm fed current Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc Chairman Mohammad Raad, and Political Council Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Qmati into Hezbollah’s founding networks.
Hezbollah and the Dawa Party also lay claim to the same attacks and martyrs, including Nazih Fadl Harb, who is one of the earliest martyrs claimed by Hezbollah. However, Harb died on December 15, 1981—five months before Hezbollah’s recognized rise after the June 6, 1982, Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The date and general location of his death coincide with a suicide car bombing carried out by the Dawa Party against the Iraqi Embassy in Lebanon.
Over the decades, Hezbollah would repay this Iraqi debt, especially in the wake of the 2003 US invasion, creating a symbiosis that would bring Iraqi Shiite militias deeper into the orbit of the Axis of Resistance. Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, while still serving in his role as the Deputy Commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), creditedthe “great martyrs” Imad Mughniyeh and Mustafa Badreddine—two of Hezbollah’s storied founders and former military commanders—with arriving in Iraq in the early 1980s to train “Iraqi [Shiite] jihadi rejectionist groups” to fight Saddam Hussain.
The Hezbollah operatives then returned to Iraq, according to Muhandis, after 2003 to “train, aid, and prepare” Iraqi Shiite militias and operatives to fight US forces, including Muhandis, who was serving as the leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia. Muhandis said that Badreddine and Mughniyeh played a “very important” and “central” role in training Iraqi Shiite “mujahidin forces” and organizing them as “resistance cells against the Americans.” This greatly benefited the PMF, as Muhandis noted that a “large proportion” of its fighters “come from the cadres of those who fought the American presence in Iraq.” Muhandis and other sources confirmed that Hezbollah’s role in Iraq continued during the later fight against the Islamic State.
