On the evening of Jan. 20, a ballistic missiles and rockets attack struck the U.S.-backed Al Asad base in western Iraq, causing several injuries. The attack was shortly thereafter claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), which actually represents the umbrella of a sodality composed by multiple militias in 2023 and characterized primarily by two common elements: close relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran and clear opposition to the continuity of the U.S. presence in Iraq.
The Jan. 20 attack was the latest in a long series of attacks that have increasingly targeted the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Syria over the past several months, striking lightning-fast at bases where U.S. personnel are stationed through the use of crude rockets but also far more sophisticated ballistic missiles.
According to a statement by the command of U.S. forces in the country, most of the rockets and missiles fired at the Al Asad base were reportedly intercepted and destroyed by the anti-aircraft defense systems deployed at the base, but some of these nevertheless evaded the defense system by striking the interior of the infrastructure and causing serious damage, in addition to injuring an unspecified number of soldiers.
The acronym of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (al-Muqawamat al-Islamiyah fi al-Iraq) first appeared in October 2023, after a number of Iraqi Shiite militias appear to have wanted to band together to conduct a more coordinated military action against U.S. forces in the country, as part of a broader, overarching regional ideological dimension that supports the Palestinian cause, opposes Israeli policy and opposes the role of the United States and its allies.
The group has already claimed more than 20 attacks since the date of its formalization, both in Iraq and Syria, although somewhat opaque still remains as to the nature of the fellowship, its composition and the rules of its operation and coordination.
The United States believes that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is in fact a fictitious formation, formed by Iran through the participation of a number of militias that remain essentially autonomous in the management of their activities, but that lend themselves to targeting the American presence in the region in order not to involve Iran in a direct way, thereby limiting the ability of the United States to respond and generating embarrassment for the Iraqi government itself.
Specifically, according to Washington, the Jan. 20 attack on Al Asad’s base was allegedly carried out by the Kataib Hezbollah formation, which in turn is also part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in a web of interests within which it is difficult to identify a hierarchy and line of command. An instrument, however, that the United States considers inextricably linked to Iran, and exploited by it to be able to operate with impunity in the region without the evidence of direct evidence that could point responsibility back in Tehran’s direction.
At the same time, while it is certainly true that many of the Iraqi militias have close ties to the Iranian government and its military apparatus, it is equally clear that the relationship of many of these militias is highly pragmatic and instrumental toward Tehran. Substantial funding and arms supplies from the Iranians are a central element of the bond between the different components of this ensemble, as is the sharing of certain ideological and political principles, and in particular the aversion to the role of the United States and Israel. However, most Iraqi militias claim their autonomy in decision-making because of the strictly domestic agenda of their strategic vision, which does not always coincide with that of Iran.
It is not surprising, then, how the autonomy of regional allies has long been part of an intense and often contentious debate within Iranian politics, where not a few are questioning how sustainable in the long run is the country’s political and financial commitment in the direction of groups or countries (so-called proxies) that tend to gradually become more and more autonomous and thus less inclined to abide by the tacit pact that underlies the strategy of “advanced defense” conceptualized in Tehran’s strategic vision.
This operational autonomy, therefore, increasingly exposes Iran to the risk of unintended consequences, imposing a coordination and exercise of its role that the Islamic Republic seems to be managing with increasing difficulty.
A concrete example of this is the subsequent attack conducted on January 28, again by Kataib Hezbollah, against the U.S. base known as “Tower 22” in Jordan, near the border with Iraq. An armed, Iranian-made drone, for reasons still unclear was not intercepted by the base’s air defense, striking it and resulting in the deaths of three U.S. servicemen. Once again the claim for the attack was made under the name of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, although soon afterwards it was confirmed how the execution had been handled in total independence by Kataib Hezbollah, demonstrating how the IRI acronym in fact represents a mere facade.
The attack on Tower 22, however, has irked both the Iraqi and Iranian governments. The former because it demonstrates its inability to manage its own forces and its lack of political dominance over security management, and the latter because, with the killing of three soldiers, it leads the United States to the need for a military response, with the risk of triggering an escalation capable of progressively reaching Iran’s own territory.
It was therefore not surprising how on January 30, less than twenty-four hours after the attack, the commander of the Quds Force, General Qaani, rushed to Baghdad summoning the leadership of the various militias, demanding an immediate suspension of attacks against U.S. bases. This request was accepted by almost all the main acronyms that interact with Iran in various capacities, but it also saw rejection by some of the more radical galaxy, who rejected the Iranian request, deeming it incompatible with their own strategic vision and with the once again wholly domestic prerogatives that govern the operations of Iraqi Shiite militias.
In this context, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq thus appears as little more than an acronym-umbrella, lacking in reality any real operational coordination and above all its own centralized command capacity, which certainly responds on the one hand to Iran’s prerogatives of interest but on the other remains firmly anchored in the autonomy and pursuit of the local strategies of the individual actors that make up the uncertain coalition.
