Terrorism

Tehran still regards the full withdrawal of U.S. forces as its ultimate goal, and its Iraqi proxies are more than happy to use escalation for that purpose whenever they can.

Iran-backed armed groups hate being exposed as criminals in the eyes of a populace that cares deeply about rule of law, so they have turned Iraq’s legal sector into a battlespace.

Recent maritime escalation between the two countries stems mainly from Iranian efforts to fund Hezbollah, underscoring the financial interdependency between the Lebanese militia, Tehran, and the Syrian regime.

Kataib Hezbollah is the premier militia in Iraq, operating under Iran's direct command and fielding a wide range of cells responsible for kinetic, media, and social operations, some bankrolled by the Iraqi state.

The first and best-known of the facade groups that Iran-backed militias use to conceal their involvement in operations, Kataib Sarkhat al-Quds (formerly known as Ashab al-Kahf) has a particularly strong connection to AAH and, more recently, HaN.

Since losing its territorial base, the group has shown troubling signs of recovery amid a deteriorating situation at al-Hawl refugee camp.

Iraqi militias value legitimacy and try to portray themselves as acting within the law, so evidence-based approaches can be very effective at reining in those who attack on Tehran’s behalf.

The political fallout from a recent speech by the Lebanese Armed Forces commander gives Washington and its partners a golden opportunity to prod the country from crisis management toward actual solutions.

Despite accusations by leftist politicians, Ennahda’s commitment to national security has not wavered since it turned on the jihadi movement, but the party still needs to define what it means by “Muslim Democracy.”