RELEASE OF IRAQI MILITIA’S ROCKET VIDEO HAS WORRYING IMPLICATIONS
Missile test highlights Iran’s high-risk strategy in Iraq, writes Robert Tollast
An obscure Iraqi militant group released footage on October 28 claiming to show testing of a $5 million Russian-made TOS-1 Buratino rocket launcher in the desert near Mosul.
The system is capable of flattening entire city blocks and, if the footage is authentic, this would mark a major upgrade to the Katyusha-style rocket launchers Iran-backed militias have fired at US troops and the embassy in recent months.
The video was made by Ashab Al Kahf (the people of the cave), a staunchly anti-American group that appeared seemingly from nowhere in August 2019 and later claimed attacks on convoys supplying US forces.
In an interview with Flashpoint, an intelligence consultancy, in August, the group said it acted alone. But Iraqi security analyst Hamdi Malik said the system shown in the video was not a TOS-1 and the group had made an inflated claim.
He said the video appears to show a powerful piece of Iranian-made rocket artillery of the kind Iran-backed groups have already used to kill US soldiers. But this does not mean the claim is not central to the power struggle between Washington and Tehran that is being played out in Iraq.
The flow of Iran-made weapons is a risky strategy that could lead to confrontation between the US and Tehran.
The suggestion is that Ashab Al Kahf has acted not only with Iranian support, contrary to its claim, but also with the tacit support of pro-Tehran groups in Iraq, including the Badr Organisation, part of the second-largest bloc in parliament.
The Badr Organisation is one of the most powerful units in Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a collection of militias ostensibly linked to Baghdad, although many answer to Iran.
Badr Organisation leader Hadi Al Amiri has distanced himself from militias such as Ashab Al Kahf. He recently condemned groups that fired on the US embassy and attacked a UK diplomatic convoy.
In October, Kataib Hezbollah, a militia at the vanguard of Iran-backed Iraqi groups, pledged it would end attacks on US interests in Iraq on condition that Washington presented a timetable for withdrawal. Since then, the near-weekly attacks on the US embassy and bases of US troops ceased.
But experts say that despite this pledge, and condemnation of such actions from leaders such as Mr Al Amiri, the acquisition of skills by groups such as Ashab Al Kahf is part of Iran’s efforts for almost two decades to sow confusion in Iraq.
Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says Iran has worked with its allies in Iraq to create confusion about its activities, from attacks on foreign forces to the movement of gear to Syria.
“Cultivating confusion over the identity and sponsorship of militant cells is very useful for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. It allows groups like Ashab Al Kahf to pretend they are Iraqi nationalist groups, instead of extensions of a foreign intelligence service.
“It means if they make mistakes, such as killing civilians in rocket or bomb attacks, the brand can easily be discarded,” Mr Knights said.
He said Ashab Al Kahf could well attack diplomats.
“If Ashab kills protest leaders or diplomats, other militia can distance from it,” he said.
Tehran’s strategy of sowing confusion around its activities in Iraq dates back to 2003. But with the US no longer convinced by this ruse, it is risky.
PMF-linked groups such as the Badr Organisation fit this strategy. After 2003, the group infiltrated Iraq’s security apparatus, in particular, the UStrained and equipped police.
The organisation later presented itself as having a political focus. In 2011, Mr Al Amiri visited Washington, even visiting the Oval Office as part of a larger delegation.
“Badr wants to continue this double role that it’s playing, benefiting from US support to the economy, and at the same time advancing Iran’s influence in Iraq,” Mr Malik said.
But it has cultivated expertise in rocket artillery, a skill previously mastered by Kataib Hezbollah, a notorious PMF group accused of human rights abuses and lethal attacks on US and Iraqi soldiers.
Kataib Hezbollah was once a little-known fringe group in the web of Iran-backed militias until its strikes against the US brought it a level of notoriety. Now, it sits on that web as one of the most powerful and aggressive factions but is less able to operate in the shadows, given the scrutiny it has attracted.
Obscuring the links between Ashab Al Kahf and state-linked groups such as the Badr Organisation is risky for Iran.
In December, an Iraqi-American contractor was killed in a PMF rocket attack on an IraqiUS army base in northern Iraq, after dozens of similar attacks, many involving rocket systems of Iranian origin, said Alex Almeida, Iraq security analyst at energy consultancy Horizon Client Access.
The US retaliated against Kataib Hezbollah with heavy air strikes, killing 25 members of the group. Its commander and de facto PMF head, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, and Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, were killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3.
Surviving leaders of Kataib Hezbollah accused Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi of complicity in the attack through his former role as director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.
For Mr Al Amiri, the deaths of Al Muhandis and Suleimani was a loss of two close friends. But within days of the drone attack, Iran fired ballistic missiles at Iraqi-US bases, injuring at least 100 soldiers and bringing the two nations to the brink of war.
It is not the first time Kataib Hezbollah has pushed US patience to the brink.
In 2011, the group fired volleys of 240mm rockets, similar in size to the projectiles fired by the TOS-1, at US forces as they prepared to leave Iraq.
Fifteen American soldiers were killed within a month.
Since then, Iran has continued to funnel similar weaponry to its proxies, Mr Almeida said.
“Iran has been flowing material covertly to Kataib Hezbollah for a couple of years now. They store that stuff at the big Kataib Hezbollah complex in
Jurf Al Sakhr,” Mr Almeida said, referring to a town cleared of civilians by the group in 2014.
Though an array of groups appears, each with a slightly differing anti-US agenda, experts say almost all can be linked back to Badr Organisation or Kataib Hezbollah. Kataib Hezbollah and its PMF allies are determined to seek revenge for Muhandis’ death, while Mr Al Amiri said US forces must leave through legal means.
“Iran has always been playing a dangerous game in Iraq, killing hundreds of US soldiers when America had more than 160,000 men in the country. But Iran and its proxies have greatly benefited, and still benefit from this strategy,” Mr Malik said.
But Mr Malik said the US threat to close its embassy in Baghdad in September caused concern among Iran-backed groups because it risked eliminating leverage the groups have to threaten the US.
Mr Al Kadhimi has tried to reform the state in stages while preparing for elections.
One challenge he faces, however, is what to do about the powerful militias over which he has only nominal control.
“The best countermeasure to these blurring tactics is to publicise the people, their real names and the locations, bank accounts and phone numbers that tie these fake movements to real targets, which can then be linked to Kataib Hezbollah and Iran,” Mr Knights said.
That would be a tough task for Mr Al Kadhimi, said Mr Almeida. Regardless of the weapon system used by Ashab Al Kahf, its message was defiance, that “we can drive around with this launcher system and do these test fires and there’s nothing you can do about it”.
For now, Ashab Al Kahf remains an obscure group with an unclear link to Iran.
Its video of the test-firing might indicate the group now occupies the ground Kataib Hezbollah once had when it went from being an obscure group to bringing the US and Iran to the brink of war.
Cultivating confusion over the identity and sponsorship of militant cells is useful for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard MICHAEL KNIGHTS Washington Institute