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2019-07-22 Iraq
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A Mysterious Drone Attacked 'Iran-Backed Militia' In Iraq
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 | The fog of war is thick in this one, dear Reader. Usually the fog clears quickly, but not this time, for some reason. |
[Jpost] On Friday, a drone attacked Iraqi Security Forces that were deployed 180 km. north of Baghdad, near the city of Tuz Khurmatu. Initially reported as an attack on Iranian-allied forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the mysterious drone incident is still being investigated and it is not clear where it came from or who carried out the attack that left several maimed.
What we know is that something happened.
The US-led anti-ISIS coalition put out a statement on July 19 saying they were aware of reports "of an attack against the Iranians and a Popular Mobilization Force unit in Salah a-Din [governorate]. Coalition Forces were not involved, and we have no further information at this time." The coalition responded because of rumors circulating on social media and in Iraq seeking to blame the US for the incident.
| Goodness. Why would Iraqi authorities feel such a strong need to blame the Yanks? |
The day of the drone incident was the same day that the US said it used electronic warfare to take down an Iranian drone that was harassing the USS Boxer near the Straits of Hormuz. In another incident on the same day, Iran
Continued from Page 2
 ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
raided a British-flagged oil tanker. So tensions were already high that day.
Different media have reported the incident. Kurdistan 24 wrote that "unidentified drone bombs Iran-allied militia in Iraq." It said the incident occurred near Amerli, which is south of Tuz Khurmatu, and that the victims were from the "al-Shohada military camp of the Turkmen Brigades, part of the Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi militias." This was according to Iraq’s Security Media Cell, Kurdistan 24 reported. Reports said that the drone "dropped grenades" and injured two people, but also said and ammunition depot was struck and one killed. The Hashd al-Shaabi are called the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and are a group of mostly Shi’ite paramilitaries who were raised to fight ISIS, but who became part of the Iraqi security forces in 2018 and are now standardized military units.
Fox News wrote that an "anonymous bigwig with the militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, said the attack resulted in two maimed Iranians and struck a base that houses advisers from Iran and Leb." Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic newspaper based in London, wrote that Hezbollah and IRGC members were killed in the attack. Quoting a leader of local Iraqi tribes, it said that the base struck houses "Iranian-made ballistic missiles."
In a thread on Twitter, the user "Tom Cat," who follows Iraqi security issues closely, wrote that there were no IRGC in the area and that the camp targeted was a headquarters for Brigade 16 of the PMU. He wrote that it was possible the drone came from an ISIS hideout.
Iraq has ordered an investigation into the attack on Brigade 16, with PMU members initially alleging the drone attack might be a violation of Iraq’s illusory sovereignty.
The tensions between the US and Iranian-backed groups in Iraq form a backdrop of the drone attack. The US has designated several powerful Iraqi militias as terrorist groups and those groups are part of the PMU. The US even slapped sanctions on "Iraqi militia leaders" on July 19, the same day as the dronezap. But Brigade 16, which is made up of local Turkmen mostly from the area of Tuz Khurmatu and is affiliated with the Badr Organization, is not part of these sanctions. Madi Taqi al-Amerli, a former head of Brigade 52 and a member of Iraq’s parliament, wrote that the drone attack had targeted a headquarters that appeared linked to both Brigade 52 and 16. Brigade 52 is also a Turkmen unit linked to Badr from Salah a-Din governorate.
The picture that emerges of the attack is two competing narratives. In one, the unit that was targeted included IRGC members in the vicinity and also members of Lebanese Hezbollah or Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah. One social media account claimed that six IRGC and Hezbollah members were killed and Iranian-supplied Fateh 110 missiles struck. Either way, that narrative says that the base was linked closely to Iran. This narrative blames foreign forces for the drone attack, usually blaming the US. The second narrative is more prosaic and says that local Turkmen forces were maimed and that attack was likely by an ISIS drone. Because of the tensions between the US and Iran, particularly on Friday July 19, the drone incident takes on added weight.
Iran Denies Reports Of Its Forces Being Killed In Air Strike In Iraq
[Jpost] Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah members were killed in an air strike on a base in Iraq overnight, according to Saudi Arabia's Al-Arabiya. An Iranian-backed militia denied that any Iranian forces or military advisers were killed in the attack, Fars News Agency reported.
Al-Arabiya reported that Iranian-made ballistic missiles were recently transported to the base via trucks used to transport refrigerated food. Iraqi security forces confirmed that such missiles were located at the base.
A security source said that two explosions hit the base, one targeting an ammunition depot belonging to an Iranian-backed group. Facilities for the development of ballistic missiles were also targeted in the attack, carried out by an unmanned aircraft.
A drone dropped a bomb onto the Al-Shuhada base in the northern Saladin province north of Baghdad, wounding at least two al-Hashd ash-Sha'abi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF) fighters, said the Iraqi military in a statement, according to the Iranian IRNA News.
IRNA quoted multiple Iraqi media sources claiming the attack was carried out by Israel and that they may have used American bases in northern Iraq to carry it out.
A former adviser to former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi tweeted that "the hypothesis that the Zionist regime has targeted the base of al-Hashd ash-Sha'abi is now the strongest hypothesis."
An Iraqi security analyst said that the attack seemed to be the work of either an Israeli drone, an ISIS Katyusha rocket or other enemies of the PMF.
A source from the IRGC told the Kuwaiti Al Jarida newspaper that preliminary investigations indicate that Israel was behind the attack. An Israeli drone launched from a US base in Syria attacked the base, which stored short- and medium-range missiles.
The IRGC reached this conclusion because the type of missile that hit the camp is the same used by the IAF in attacks on Syria.
Iraqi sources told Al Jarida that the government would likely not attribute responsibility for the attack to Israel in order to play down the importance of the incident. If Israel is behind the attack, it would put the Iraqi government in a difficult position due to the role of US forces in the country.
The Lebanese al-Ahd news site quoted informed security sources as saying that the Iraqi PMF base was targeted by three Israeli Harop missiles which weigh 23 kg. and have a range of 1,000 km. according to Fars. "Only Israel is in possession of this type of weapon in the Middle East," according to Al-Ahd. The attack was carried out by an Israeli F-16, according to the news site.
Reports indicated that Hezbollah forces were deployed at the base, according to IRNA.
A spokesman for the Iraqi PMF dismissed the reports that Iranian military advisers were killed in the attack, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency.
"Opposite to what the biased media said, no advisers or IRGC (Islamic Revolution Guards Corps) forces have been killed," said Ali al-Hosseni on Saturday.
Fars also reported that the Arabic-language al-Etejah news channel had quoted "special sources" as saying that a US spy plane conducted reconnaissance operations against PMF and Iraqi army forces in the region before the attack on Friday.
"The US flew [a] B350 plane that is picked for [the] mission by the US intelligence services for air surveillance and is equipped with advanced vision systems. It can also carry 5 to 7 people," the source told al-Etejah.
Al-Arabiya also reported that the international coalition had been monitoring the base before the attack. 
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