TEHRAN, Iran, June 19 (World Daily Times) — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps set up secret cells in Iraq to carry out drone attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, according to Iraqi sources cited by Reuters. The report matters because it points to a possible shift in how Iran-linked networks operate: smaller, harder-to-see units that can act outside the command structure of larger militia groups and make it easier to deny responsibility.
The Reuters report, based on eight Iraqi sources including military and security officials and local militia commanders, says the cells were created to bypass established militia networks and avoid detection. Three of the sources described the setup as three or four cells, each with about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim fighters.
According to three Iraqi security sources cited by Reuters, the cells launched at least seven drone attacks from desert locations near Basra and Samawa in southern Iraq. The reported attacks took place between April 20 and May 17 and targeted sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The report says some members were drawn from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new cells were described as operating outside that group’s chain of command and reporting directly to the IRGC.
That detail is significant because it suggests a structure built to separate the alleged planners from the groups already under pressure in Iraq. Iraqi officials cited by Reuters said the move would allow the IRGC to maintain plausible deniability, shift blame away from the main Iran-backed factions and reduce U.S. pressure on Baghdad to disarm those groups.
The allegations, if accurate, also show how Iraq can be used as a launch point in a wider regional contest that stretches across the Gulf. The reported targets were not inside Iraq, but in neighboring states that host American forces, making the activity part of a broader security pattern rather than a local one.
Reuters said the Iraqi security sources relied on human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered from the launch sites. The report did not identify any arrests, charges or court cases tied to the alleged cells, and the brief supplied for this article does not include a public response from the IRGC, the Iraqi government or the governments of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
