Uneasy calm in Iraq as US, Iran plot next moves in the standoff

baghdad — It has been weeks since Iran-backed factions in Iraq traded fire with US forces, but experts warn the rivals could be using the time to prepare for an escalation.

After the last Katyusha rockets slammed into American installations in Iraq in March, the United States began planning an unprecedented bombing campaign in Iraq and new Iranaligned factions threatened to kill Western ambassadors.

“Even if we haven’t seen rocket attacks, the Iranians are repositioning themselves for something else,” said Phillip Smyth, who researches Shia armed factions for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Meanwhile, US troops in Iraq are hunkered down and taking the threat more seriously,” Smyth said.

Those troops, deployed as part of the coalition fighting the Daesh group, have been hit by more than two dozen rocket attacks that have grown gradually deadlier.

Last month, the Pentagon began drafting plans for a major escalation against the Iran-backed factions — namely the hardline Kataeb Hezbollah — blamed for the rockets.

“Washington told us they’d simultaneously hit 122 targets in Iraq if more Americans died,” a top Iraqi official said.

The scale of such bombing could have enormous consequences.

Coalition head General Pat White feared it could spin out of control, writing to US Central Command in March with “concerns” that targeted groups would respond, putting thousands of coalition troops in “significant” danger, according to a US military official who saw White’s memo.

Non-US coalition members are “nervous” the bombing could kill civilians or push Baghdad to permanently oust foreign troops, diplomats from two coalition countries said.

The plan has been set aside for now as the US fights the spread of Covid-19, three Western diplomats said.

“But if there’s another attack and it kills an American, then all of this comes back again,” one said.

Washington and Tehran have already edged dangerously close to outright conflict after the US killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January, prompting Iran to launch ballistic missiles at US troops in western Iraq.

Apparently fearing more strikes, the US deployed Patriot anti-missile batteries and C-RAM rocket defence systems to Iraq to protect its forces, a move which US officials acknowledged to AFP could be seen by Iran as provocative.

At the same time, it reduced the coalition’s presence, pulling out of half

the bases it once operated from in Iraq and withdrawing hundreds of trainers indefinitely as a precautionary measure against Covid-19.

As most non-US troops were trainers, that has left relatively more Americans in the remaining forces.

“The coalition as we knew it no longer exists,” a Western diplomat from a coalition country said.

A key lawmaker from Fatah, the bloc representing pro-Iran factions, cast doubt on Washington’s intentions this week.

“The American side wasn’t serious about withdrawing and handing over bases, and was actually re-deploying its troops for tactical reasons to protect its soldiers amid the spread of the coronavirus,” said Mohammad Ghabban.

Kataeb Hezbollah has insisted the shifts should lead into a full and permanent withdrawal, raising the prospect

of further rocket attacks.

“There will be no death for these forces if they keep withdrawing as part of a total departure from Iraq,” the group said this month.

At the same time, apparently new factions have emerged.

In the last month, three previously unknown groups have called for rocket attacks, threatened the American and British ambassadors, and released rare drone footage of the US embassy in Baghdad and the western Ain Al Asad base, which hosts the most coalition troops.

Two top coalition officials said they suspect the groups were “the same old actors” — Kataeb Hezbollah and allies — who were “organising themselves slightly differently”. —

The American side wasn’t serious about withdrawing and handing over bases, and was actually redeploying its troops for tactical reasons to protect its soldiers amid the spread of the coronavirus

Mohammad Ghabban

A key lawmaker from Fatah