How the US Strikes a Delicate Balance in Responding to Attacks on Its Forces by Iran-Backed Militias

Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria have long battled with US and coalition forces, launching sporadic attacks against bases in the region where troops are deployed to fight ISIS group insurgents.

But since Oct. 17, as civilian deaths in Israel's war against Hamas began to skyrocket, there has been a dramatic spike in attacks by Iran's proxies, operating under the umbrella name of the “Islamic Resistance” in Iraq.

While most of the more than five dozen attacks have been largely ineffective, at least 60 US personnel have reported minor injuries. Most often those have been traumatic brain injuries from the explosions, and all troops have returned to duty, according to the Pentagon.

In response to the attacks, the US has walked a delicate line. The US military has struck back just three times as the Biden administration balances efforts to deter the militants without triggering a broader Middle East conflict.

A look at the attacks and the US response:

ATTACKS — WHEN, WHERE, WHY

According to the Pentagon, Iranian-backed militants have launched 61 attacks on bases and facilities housing US personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. Of those, 29 have been in Iraq and 32 in Syria.

The US has about 2,000 US forces in Iraq, under an agreement with the Baghdad government, and about 900 in Syria, mainly to counter IS but also using the al-Tanf garrison farther south to keep tabs on Iranian proxies moving weapons across the border.

The latest jump in attacks began 10 days after Hamas' Oct. 7 incursion into Israel, where at least 1,200 people were killed. Israel’s blistering military response has killed thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza and fueled threats of retaliation by a range of Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen-based Houthis, and militants in Iraq and Syria.

Those threats escalated after an Oct. 17 blast at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds of civilians. Hamas blamed Israel for the explosion, but Israel has denied it, and both Israeli and US officials have blamed it on a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad.

The bulk of the attacks on bases and facilities have been with one-way suicide drones or rockets, and in most cases, there were no injuries and only minor damage. A significant number of the injuries, particularly the traumatic brain injuries, were in the initial attacks between Oct. 17 and 21 at al-Asad air base in Iraq and al-Tanf. One US contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died while seeking shelter from a possible drone attack.

WHO ARE THESE GROUPS?

With a power vacuum and years of civil conflict following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, militias grew and multiplied in Iraq, some supported by Iran. A decade later, as the ISIS extremist group swept across Iraq, a number of Iran-backed militias came together under the Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella group and fought ISIS.

The groups included the Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Badr Brigades and Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades — a separate group from the Lebanese Hezbollah. A number of the Iraqi militias also operate in Syria, where Iran supports the government of Bashar al-Assad against opposition groups in the uprising-turned-war that began in 2011.

After the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, a group of the Iran-backed factions branded itself under the new “Islamic Resistance” in Iraq name, and began the latest spate of attacks on bases housing US forces in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks put Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a difficult position. While he came to power with the Iranian-backed groups' support, he also wants continued good relations with the US and has backed the ongoing presence of American troops in his country.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a meeting with al-Sudani this month, warned of consequences if Iranian-backed militias continued to attack US facilities in Iraq and Syria. Sudani then traveled to Tehran and met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a meeting US officials suggested was a positive development.

An official with one of the Iranian-backed militias said Sudani put “great pressure” on the militias not to carry out attacks during Blinken's visit. In return, he said, Sudani promised to push the Americans not to retaliate aggressively against militias that have carried out the strikes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

PROPORTIONAL OR NOT ENOUGH?

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the Biden administration has moved warships, fighter jets, air defense systems and more troops into the Middle East in a campaign to discourage militant groups from widening the conflict.

But the US military response to the attacks on its forces has been minimal. On Oct. 27, US fighter jets struck two weapons and ammunition storage sites in eastern Syria near al-Boukamal that were used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian-backed groups. On Nov. 8, fighter jets dropped bombs on an IRGC weapons storage facility near Maysulun in Deir Ezzor. And on Nov. 12, US airstrikes targeted a training facility and a safe house in the Bulbul district of Mayadin. US officials said IRGC-related personnel were there and likely struck, but provided no details.

There are concerns within the administration that more substantial retaliation could escalate the violence and trigger more deadly attacks. The Pentagon says the strikes have degraded the group's military stockpiles and made the sites unusable.

But critics argue that the US response pales in comparison with the 60 attacks and American injuries, and — more importantly — has obviously failed to deter the groups.

IRAQ GOVERNMENT SENSITIVITIES

Though nearly half of the attacks have been on US bases in Iraq, the US has conducted retaliatory airstrikes only against locations in Syria.

The Pentagon defends the strike decisions by saying the US is hitting Iranian Revolutionary Guard sites, which has a more direct impact on Tehran. Officials say the goal is to pressure Iran to tell the militia groups to stop the attacks. They also say the sites are chosen because they are weapons warehouses and logistical hubs used by the Iran-linked militias, and taking them out erodes the insurgents' attack capabilities.

A key reason the US is concentrating on Syria, however, is that the US doesn't want to risk alienating the Iraqi government by striking within its borders — potentially killing or wounding Iraqis.

In early January 2020, the US launched an airstrike in Baghdad, killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The strike frayed relations with the Iraqi government and spawned demands for the withdrawal of all US forces from the country.

The US considers its presence in Iraq as critical to the fight against ISIS, its ability to support forces in Syria and its ongoing influence in the region. Military leaders have worked to restore good relations with Baghdad, including providing ongoing support for Iraqi forces.

The relentless exchanges of fire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah of recent days have stoked fears the longtime foes are moving inexorably towards all-out war, despite international appeals for restraint.

AFP correspondents in Jerusalem and Beirut talked to officials and analysts who told them what the opposing sides hope to achieve by ramping up their attacks and whether there is any way out.

- View from Israel -

Israeli officials insist they have been left with no choice but to respond to Hezbollah after its near-daily rocket fire emptied communities near the border with Lebanon for almost a year.

"Hezbollah's actions have turned southern Lebanon into a battlefield," a military official said in a briefing on Monday.

The goals of Israel's latest operation are to "degrade" the threat posed by Hezbollah, push Hezbollah fighters away from the border and destroy infrastructure built by its elite Radwan Force, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli political analyst Michael Horowitz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to pressure Hezbollah to agree to halt its cross-border attacks even without a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which has been a prerequisite for the Iran-backed armed group.

"I think the Israeli strategy is clear: Israel wants to gradually put pressure on Hezbollah, and strike harder and harder, in order to force it to rethink its alignment strategy with regard to Gaza," Horowitz said.

Both sides understand the risks of all-out war, meaning it is not inevitable, he said.

The two sides fought a devastating 34-day war in the summer of 2006 which cost more than 1,200 lives in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

"This is an extremely dangerous situation, but one that for me still leaves room for diplomacy to avoid the worst," said Horowitz.

Retired Colonel Miri Eisen, a senior fellow at Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, said that the Israeli leadership saw ramped-up military operations against Hezbollah as an essential step towards striking any agreement to de-escalate.

"The language they (Hezbollah) speak is a language of violence and power and that means actions are very important against them," she said.

"I wish it was otherwise. But I have not seen any other language that works."

For now, Israeli officials say they are focused on aerial operations, but Eisen said a ground incursion could be ordered to achieve a broader goal: ensuring Hezbollah can not carry out anything similar to Hamas's October 7 attack.

"I do think that there's the possibility of a ground incursion because at the end we need to move the Hezbollah forces" away from the border, she said.

- View from Lebanon -

After sabotage attacks on Hezbollah communications devices and an air strike on the command of its Radwan Force last week, the group's deputy leader Naim Qassem declared that the battle with Israel had entered a "new phase" of "open reckoning".

As Lebanon's health ministry announced that nearly 500 people had been killed on Monday in the deadliest single day since the 2006 war, a Hezbollah source acknowledged that the situation was now similar.

"Things are taking an escalatory turn to reach a situation similar to" 2006, the Hezbollah source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.

Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher on Hezbollah who is based at Cardiff University, said that while the group would feel it has to strike back at Israel after suffering such a series of blows, it would seek to calibrate its response so that it does not spark an all-out war.

While Hezbollah did step up its attacks on Israel after its military commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut in late July, its response was seen as being carefully calibrated not to provoke a full-scale conflict that carries huge risks for the movement.

"It will most likely, again, be a kind of sub-threshold (reaction) in the sense of below the threshold of war -- a controlled escalation, but one that's also qualitatively different," she said.

Saad said that whether or not war can be avoided may not be in Hezbollah's hands, but the group would be bolstered by memories of how it fared when Israel last launched a ground invasion and the belief that it was stronger militarily than its ally Hamas which has been battling Israeli troops in Gaza for nearly a year.

"It is extremely capable -- and I would say more effective than Israel -- when it comes to ground war, underground offensive, and we've seen this historically, particularly in 2006," she said.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said last week that his fighters could fight Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and fire rockets at northern Israel at the same time in the event of an Israeli ground operation to create a buffer zone.

In a report released Monday, the International Crisis Group said the recent escalation between the two sides "poses grave dangers".

"The point may be approaching at which Hezbollah decides that only a massive response can stop Israel from carrying out more attacks that impair it further," it said.

How the US Strikes a Delicate Balance in Responding to Attacks on Its Forces by Iran-Backed Militias