Iran’s regional proxies hold back from all-out war with US and Israel
Iranian-backed militias around the Middle East are continuing attacks against Israel, the US and their allies in retaliation for the US-Israeli offensive against Tehran, but have so far held back from all-out confrontation, analysts and regional officials say. The relative restraint suggests that Tehran sees such forces as a strategic reserve to be deployed if the 12-day war continues to intensify – though it may also be a sign that Iranian command and control systems are breaking down. Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamist militant movement which has close links to Iran, joined the conflict early, launching missile and drone attacks at Israel after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. On Tuesday, Shia militias in Iraq attacked a US diplomatic facility in Baghdad, the latest in a string of such strikes, and have previously launched long-range attacks at Israeli and US bases in Jordan. But so far, the Yemen-based Houthis, which are also part of Iran’s once-potent coalition of militant militias across the Middle East known as the “axis of resistance”, have not reopened hostilities with the US or joined Tehran’s retaliatory attacks on Israel or Gulf neighbours or shipping – though they warned last week that their “fingers are on the trigger”. With the closure of the strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil supplies, the Red Sea shipping lanes have become even more vital. No attacks in the Red Sea have been reported since the Iran war began, but threats persist, the Joint Maritime Information Center, a naval advisory service, said on Sunday.
Observers say the imminent passage of a US aircraft carrier battle group through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait at the eastern end of the Red Sea would be a key moment that would test the powerfully armed movement’s intentions. “That is going to be a really important test … The Houthis have mines, drones, artillery, a whole range of missiles. The axis of resistance will never get a better chance to set a US aircraft carrier on fire,” said Michael Knights, a regional expert at Horizon Engage, a strategic advisory – based in New York. The Houthis have received extensive financial, military and other support from Tehran over decades, and described the appointment on Monday of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader of Iran as “a new victory for the Islamic Revolution”. However, experts say the Houthis, though they still possess an arsenal of powerful long-range missiles, may decide against active involvement in the current conflict and would not simply follow orders from Tehran. “It is difficult to predict, but I don’t think they will strike shipping in the Red Sea purely based on solidarity with Iran … They are weighing domestic considerations,” said Allison Minor, of the Atlantic Council, a thinktank based in Washington DC. “Getting involved in the Iran war is a potential scenario, but would not yield the same domestic and international benefits for the Houthis that attacking Israel and Red Sea shipping during the Gaza war did, and …. could pose greater risks.” Last week, Phillip Smyth, a US-based independent analyst of Iran’s allies and proxies, said Tehran may be holding the Houthis “in reserve”, but that the movement’s leaders could also be “hedging their bets in case the Iranian regime collapses”.
In Iraq, which is emerging as a key new theatre in the conflict, violence has continued to flare. One Iranian-backed armed group said an airstrike on Tuesday killed four of its fighters at a base in northern Iraq in the latest of a series of such attacks, most likely carried out by either the US or Israel. The strike comes after almost daily attacks by pro-Iranian militia forces against a US base in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, and on positions of potential allies among local Kurdish factions. Since the beginning of the war 12 days ago, there have been unconfirmed reports of US and Israeli special forces operating against pro-Iranian Shia militia groups in Iraq’s western desert. In one clash with what are thought to have been Israeli special forces, Iraqi government troops suffered casualties, prompting a protest from Baghdad. There have also been multiple air strikes against militia bases in the west and south of Iraq. Jordan has faced Iranian attacks. According to the Jordanian military, Iran targeted the kingdom with 60 missiles and 59 drones during the first week of the conflict. Most were intercepted. However, missiles destroyed a valuable US radar deployed to the Muwaffaq Salti airbase, where dozens of US warplanes were stationed, including F-35 stealth fighters and key electronic warfare aircraft. In Iraq, drone and rocket attacks launched by pro-Iranian militia have also repeatedly targeted Baghdad international airport, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, as well as oilfields and facilities. On Monday, two drones were downed nearby, a security source said. The Iraq-based militia fighters have posted videos boasting of their efforts to strike US and Israeli targets in the region, though their ability and will to inflict serious harm is doubted by some observers. “They could be doing more than they are doing now,” said one regional security official. “The [weapons] they have are not the best … and they are clearly worried about getting hit hard if they do cause serious harm, so that’s going to limit what they can or want to do.” Iraq has been a proxy battleground between the US, its allies and Iran since the 2003 US-led invasion, but the country’s current leaders have sought to avoid being drawn into this new conflict. The pro-Iranian militia fighters are recruited among Iraq’s majority Shia community, and follow orders from senior officers from Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Two of the more militant militias, Kataeb Imam Ali and Kataib Hezbollah, have been repeatedly targeted by US forces in recent days. The number of casualties in the strikes and counterstrikes in Iraq is unclear, but between 20 and 30 fighters from militant groups are thought to have been killed, as well as about 20 civilians in Kurdistan, local NGOs said. The Houthis began launching missiles at Israel and striking Red Sea shipping, in what they said was solidarity with Palestinians, after the Israeli offensive into Gaza that was triggered by the Hamas surprise attack in October 2023. The attacks led to several rounds of Israeli bombing of the Houthis and a concentrated US offensive last year which ended in an uneasy ceasefire deal. Analysts said a further scenario that could unfold now was an attack by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Their attack on oil infrastructure in March 2022 highlighted the kingdom’s political and economic vulnerabilities.