The Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq has threatened to target “US interests” in the Middle East if the US intervenes in the Israel-Iran conflict, according to several regional Arabic reports. The New Arab reported on June 15 that the pro-Iranian group has also called for the “closure of the US Embassy in Baghdad,” which “comes as a state of anticipation and fear prevails in Iraq that the country could be dragged into a war.” CNN Arabic noted that Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu al Askari made the group’s threat.
Kataib Hezbollah and its commanders have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department as a terrorist group. It is one of a number of powerful Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that are also part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the official state paramilitary organization that ostensibly reports to Iraq’s prime minister.
Akram al Kaabi, the leader of Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, another pro-Iranian militia that is part of the PMF, also issued a statement threatening the US. Kaabi made the threat in reference to reports that the US might attempt to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. “At that point, not a single soldier or diplomat of yours will be safe. Everyone holding your nationality in our region—and all your direct and indirect interests—will become legitimate targets for us, as long as we live in this vile world,” he said.
Threats against the US are increasing in Iraq as clashes between Israel and Iran have grown over the past week. Days before Israel initially attacked Iran on June 12, the US considered evacuating some of its non-essential State Department personnel from Iraq. More recently, US President Donald Trump said he is weighing US intervention in the conflict.
When regional tensions have increased between the US and Iran in the past, pro-Iranian Iraqi militias have targeted US forces and institutions. For example, in late 2019 and early 2020, pro-Iranian militias sent protesters to the US Embassy in Baghdad after months of militia attacks on US forces in Iraq. The US subsequently killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), and Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, Kataib Hezbollah’s leader, in a drone strike in January 2020. In 2021, the militias shifted their attacks to target US forces in Erbil and various areas of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
Tensions were already growing in Iraq before the Israel-Iran war. For example, in May, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed energy deals in Washington that angered the federal government in Baghdad, which subsequently withheld salaries from the KRG. When the Israel-Iran war broke out, members of Iraq’s PMF were quick to rally in support of Iran and begin issuing warnings against the US joining the war.
Drones and other weapons used in the war between Israel and Iran have also fallen in Iraq, including a drone that reportedly exploded in Erbil on June 16. Rudaw Media Network said the drone may have been “intercepted by the new US consulate compound’s aerial defense system,” though this speculation is unconfirmed. On June 20, a second drone crashed in Erbil. In addition, parts of a cruise missile or drone were found west of Erbil on June 19, and Shafaq News has reported that several other drones have crashed in different parts of Iraq.
Iran has threatened the Kurdistan region in the past and demanded that Iraq expel Iranian Kurdish dissident groups from northern Iraq. These groups include the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Komala, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and others. In January 2024, Iran launched a missile attack on what it claimed was a “Mossad HQ” in northern Iraq, killing several Kurdish civilians.
In northwest Iraq, Iraq deployed security forces to Nineveh Governorate, which borders Syria and Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Iranian-backed militias have used this area to launch rockets at Kurdish targets in the past, but the government has reportedly taken steps to prevent the province from becoming a staging ground for attacks. “A security source in Nineveh revealed on Monday that Iraqi security forces have implemented strict measures in the western desert areas of the province, as part of a preemptive plan aimed at preventing armed factions from carrying out rocket attacks,” Shafaq News reported on June 16.
Three days later, Rudaw noted that “supporters of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) in Nineveh province on Tuesday took to the streets and held demonstrations in support of Iran, condemning the Israeli strikes as the conflict rages on.” Members of Asaib Ahl al Haq (AAH), one of the militias, gathered in the Christian town of Bartella to carry out its protest. It was not clear why the Shiite militia chose a Christian town for its rally.
Iraqi citizens are divided in their perceptions of the war between Israel and Iran. Iraq’s influential Shiite Islamic scholar Ayatollah Ali Sistani has expressed concern about the Israeli airstrikes on Iran and called for an end to the war. Young people in Iraq have mixed views of the conflict, Shafaq News reports, while the federal government, according to one analyst, walks a “tightrope” as “both an ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States.” At the local level, the war has spurred gas shortages, led to Iraq’s airspace being closed, and caused a Kurdish party to postpone its congress.
