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Leaders of Iraqi Pro-Iran Factions Head to Syria, Lebanon in Wake of Escalation in Gaza

Iraqis stage a rally in Baghdad in support of Palestinians. (Reuters)
Iraqis stage a rally in Baghdad in support of Palestinians. (Reuters)
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Leaders of Iraqi Pro-Iran Factions Head to Syria, Lebanon in Wake of Escalation in Gaza

Iraqis stage a rally in Baghdad in support of Palestinians. (Reuters)
Iraqis stage a rally in Baghdad in support of Palestinians. (Reuters)

The leaders of several Iraqi factions loyal to Iran have headed to Syria and Lebanon in wake of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, informed Iraqi sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The sources said the leaders were accompanied by groups of fighters, whose task, at the moment, seems aimed at assessing the situation on the ground and following up with groups in Syria and Lebanon along border regions.

The Iraqi factions have received messages from Iran that the situation in Gaza does not demand direct intervention. This may change if the war expands and more parties become involved, they explained.

Moreover, leaders of the pro-Iran Coordination Framework in Iraq received a recommendation to wait and see how the situation unfolds in Gaza before any action can be taken.

Meanwhile, the faction leaders relayed the details of the situation along the border in Syria and Lebanon back to Iraq, said the sources.

They were briefed on maps and potential scenarios should a confrontation erupt, they added.

“The Iraqi factions are awaiting orders that haven’t arrived yet. They have no intention of moving without any clear Iranian orders,” they stressed.

In Iraq, Coordination Framework media have continued to promote the “Iraqi resistance’s readiness to head to the field and carry out attacks against American and Israeli interests.”

Deputy commander of Iran’s Quds Force Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh and Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Mohammad Kazem Al Sadeq recently held a meeting with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and leaders of pro-Iran factions to request that the media intensify its campaign against Israel and support the Palestinian Hamas movement. They also called for signing up recruits to join the fight against Israel, informed sourced told Radio Farda.

The Quds Force called on the militias to be on alert and wait for orders from Iran, they added.

Head of the pro-Iran Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq Qais al-Khazali said on a post on the X platform that his movement was “closely monitoring the developments and was ready” for any action.

It appears unlikely that all political party leaders in the Iraqi government are eager to join a greater conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, but an escalation in Gaza could pressure Iran and its allies in the region to join the fight.

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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)

Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the 14-year civil war on Sunday gathered in the city of Daraa and called on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.

The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared, many of them detained by Bashar al-Assad's network of intelligence agencies, as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist ISIS group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing to this day.

When opposition led by group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew President Bashar Assad in April, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government's dungeons.

Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.

Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government's security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn't heard from him since.

Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad's ouster, trying to figure out her father's whereabouts.

“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she told The Associated Press. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”

A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared and to pursue perpetrators.

Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.

Syria’s conflict started as one of the popular uprisings of the so-called 2011 Arab Spring, before Assad crushed the largely peaceful protests and a civil war erupted. Half a million people have been killed and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.