Iranian Commander Urged Escalation against US Forces at Iraq Meeting, Sources Say

Blast walls of a sleeping quarters for US soldiers are seen at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq January 13, 2020. (Reuters)
Blast walls of a sleeping quarters for US soldiers are seen at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq January 13, 2020. (Reuters)
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Iranian Commander Urged Escalation against US Forces at Iraq Meeting, Sources Say

Blast walls of a sleeping quarters for US soldiers are seen at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq January 13, 2020. (Reuters)
Blast walls of a sleeping quarters for US soldiers are seen at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq January 13, 2020. (Reuters)

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander urged Iraqi Shiite militias to step up attacks on US targets during a meeting in Baghdad last week, three militia sources and two Iraqi security sources familiar with the gathering said.

American forces in Iraq and Syria were attacked several times following the visit by an Iranian delegation led by Revolutionary Guards intelligence chief Hossein Taeb, which came after deadly US air strikes against Iran-backed militias at the Syrian-Iraqi border on June 27.

While encouraging retaliation, the Iranians advised the Iraqis not to go too far to avoid a big escalation, three militia sources briefed on the meeting said.

The Iranians did, however, advise them to widen their attacks by retaliating against US forces in Syria, according to one of the three militia sources, a senior local militia commander briefed on the meeting.

The flare-up comes as significant differences cloud diplomatic efforts to revive the Iranian 2015 nuclear agreement, which was abandoned by former US President Donald Trump but which Iran wants reinstated to allow it to resume key exports of oil.

A senior official in the region, who was briefed by Iranian authorities on Taeb’s visit, said that Taeb met several Iraqi militia leaders during the trip and conveyed “the supreme leader’s message to them about keeping up pressure on US forces in Iraq until they leave the region”.

Since the US air strikes, attacks on US troops and personnel or bases where they operate have intensified in Iraq and widened to eastern Syria.

Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters for this article, and officials at the Revolutionary Guards public relations office were not immediately available for comment.

Iran’s UN envoy this month denied US accusations that Tehran supported attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, and condemned US air strikes on Iranian-backed militants there.

There was no immediate response from the Iraqi government or the prime minister’s office to questions about the meeting.

The sources to whom Reuters spoke did so on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

US-Iranian rivalry
Iraq has been a theater of US-Iranian rivalry since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The Shiite militias have been waging a sustained and increasingly sophisticated campaign against US forces which, after withdrawing in 2011, returned to Iraq in 2014 at the head of a coalition to fight the ISIS group.

But the attacks, including explosives-laden drones, have gone up a gear since the US air strikes, which Iran-aligned militias say killed four of their members.

The two Iraqi security sources close to the activities and operations of the groups said the Iranians handed their Iraqi allies aerial maps of US positions in eastern Syria at the July 5 meeting.

The Pentagon said it was deeply concerned about the attacks, including a July 7 rocket barrage on the Ain al-Asad air base in which two American service members were wounded.

A senior Guards figure, Taeb is a mid-ranking Shiite cleric seen by insiders and analysts of Iranian politics as close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The senior official in the region said Khamenei had sent Taeb to Iraq after visits there by Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, appointed last year as head of the Guards’ expeditionary branch, the Quds Force, had failed to yield an escalation.

An Iraqi government official said it appeared Iran was seeking to use its allies in Iraq to apply pressure for a return to the nuclear deal, under which harsh US sanctions would be lifted in return for curbs on Iran’s atomic activities.

A senior Iranian diplomat said Taeb’s visit to Baghdad indicated that Khamenei was getting directly involved in Iraq affairs after the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, a previous Quds Force head, in a US drone strike in Iraq early last year.

A spokesman for one of the Iranian-backed militia groups hit by the US air strike last month confirmed that the recent attacks were carried out by the Iraqi Islamic Resistance, a reference to the Shiite Iran-backed groups.

“The military escalation against the American forces will continue until all their combatant forces leave Iraq,” Kadhim al-Fartousi, the spokesman for the Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada faction, told Reuters.

Saad al-Saadi, a senior official in the political office of the Iranian-backed group of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said if the Americans continued to strike at militias, then more effective attacks on US forces could be expected anywhere in Iraq and Syria.

The meeting was held in Baghdad’s upscale Jadiriya neighborhood in a villa just across the river Tigris from the US embassy, two of the local militia commanders said.

Iran and the United States began indirect negotiations in Vienna in early April to restore the nuclear deal. No date has been set for further talks, which adjourned on June 20.

Some Western and Iranian officials have said the talks are a long way from a conclusion, as disagreements on which US sanctions should be lifted and on the nuclear commitments that Iran has to make and when still remain in place.



EU Sanctions Iranian Individuals Accused of Targeting Dissidents

European Union flags fly outside the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
European Union flags fly outside the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
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EU Sanctions Iranian Individuals Accused of Targeting Dissidents

European Union flags fly outside the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
European Union flags fly outside the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

The EU has imposed sanctions on eight people and one entity responsible for the targeting of Iranian dissidents for assassination on behalf of Iran's government, the European Council said in a statement on Tuesday.

The sanctions, over what it called "serious human rights violations" and "transnational repression", included asset freezes and travel bans, the council said.

The Council listed the Zindashti Network, which it said was a criminal group uconnected to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security that has carried out numerous acts of transnational repression, including assassinations of Iranian dissidents, Reuters reported.

It also included the Zindashti Network's boss Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti - who it said was an Iranian narcotics trafficker and organised crime boss - and some of his associates. Zindashti and his network have previously been sanctioned by the United States.

The Council, the European Union's governing body, is also targeting Mohammed Ansari, the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Unit 840, who it said ordered the assassination of journalists critical of the Iran.

It said that the listings confirmed the EU’s concerns about transnational repression by Iranian state bodies through the use of proxy agents, in particular involving criminals and organised crime networks targeting dissidents and human rights defenders across the world, including on EU territory.