Iraq Asks Iran to Stop Targeting the Green Zone Amid High Tensions

With Donald Trump’s presidency coming to an end tomorrow, the mood in some parts of the Middle East is increasingly fraught. Yesterday, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirmed to Al-Arabiya TV that the Iraqi government had previously requested that Iran stop targeting the Green Zone in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The green Zone is an area of Iraq's capital city with Western embassies such as the US embassy and several Iraqi governmental buildings.

Usually considered a safe location, the Green Zone has been targeted several times since the killing of the IRGC’s Quds Force commander Ghasem Soleimani. back in January 2020, with attacks taking place in November and December last year. The Iraqi government fears that Iran-backed militants inside Iraq might well target the embassy again.

According to our sister website IranWire Arabic, Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein called such attacks “an embarrassment” for the Iraqi prime minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi, and he warned that Washington might respond harshly its embassy were targeted again.

With Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, there had been fears of a larger confrontation unfolding between Iran and the US before Donald Trump stepped down, especially as Trump previously warned Iran against targeting US interests in Iraq and said such a move would have consequences. “Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq,” he had written on Twitter. “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.”

Internal Iranian Problems

Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute specializing in Iranian and Iraqi military and security affairs, told IranWire that the Iraqi foreign ministry’s statement was in relation to the missile attacks in November and December.

“The attack in November happened just as the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrived in Baghdad,” he says, referring to the fact that Iran had dispatched Brigadier General Esmail Ghani to Baghdad to keep its allied pro-Iranian fractions inside Iraq in check before Joe Biden took office.

According to Knights, the pro-Iranian militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq was behind the attacks and had gone ahead it despite being ordered otherwise by the Iranian authorities. “We have to ask ourselves,” says Knights, why did Asaib Ahl al-Haq do it at that point, making the leader of the Revolutionary Guard look bad and breaking the truce with the largest Iranian group in Iraq, Kataeb Hezbollah?

“It was a way for them to say ‘You don’t control us’. But after the attacks on December 21, we have seen Iran knock their heads together and get Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq to fall back in line after the Iraqi government asked them to stop.”

According to Knights, Iran is afraid of what Trump might do and does not want to trigger him so close to his departure. The same has been reported by Middle East Eye. “Ghani made it clear that Trump wants to drag the region into an open war before leaving, to take revenge on his opponents over losing the election, and it is not in our interest to give him any justification to start such a war,” a senior commander of a Shia armed faction told this publication.

Explosions Spark Fears of Another Attack

There have been numerous reports about further attacks in Iraq by Iranian armed factions in recent days. According to Hamdi Malik, an associate fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert in Shia politics and militias, these groups have stopped “attacking US interests after the anniversary of Soleimani/Muhandis” but “have stepped up their attacks against Iraqis”. He reported almost one local incident a day between January 7 and 10,  with the latest being a raid on a liquor store in Baghdad.

On Monday night, there were reports of airstrikes south of Baghdad in the region of Jurf al-Sakhar. Regional media first reported it as a US-led airstrike on sites belonging to pro-Iranian militias, which created some panic about a potential larger attack. But this was later debunked and attributed instead to potential ISIS militants attacking power transmissions, according to The Jerusalem Post citing Iraq's security media cell.

The security organization denied Iraqi security forces had been targeted by any strikes, saying that media and bloggers had reported rumors. The US embassy in Baghdad also denied any involvement, writing on Twitter that “no US personnel or assets were in the vicinity of Jurf as-Sakhr and that there was no US involvement in this alleged incident,” in which nine people had been reported dead.

“We really don’t know much about what really happened. We know there are a number of casualties and it’s possible that those attacks were a result of ISIS activities or some American drones that the authorities refuse to take responsibility for,” said Prof. Efraim Inbar, President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), to i24NEWS. “After all, we know that there are countries in the region that do attack Iranian or Iranian-leaked targets without taking formal responsibility for such things.”

An Unstable Situation

According to Knights, it was most likely a tribal group that blew up the electricity infrastructure to signal that they “would want something”. He says it was unlikely to be something more orgnised because only local groups would target sites such as these.

However, he says, the level of online reaction to the initial story suggests how insecure the situation in Iran and Iraq has become.

“Iran wants Trump gone because they know that he can do anything,” he says. “I believe that Iran is genuinely being cautious. However, I think that after Biden’s inauguration, Iran will return to its normal activities because it’s maybe not as scared of retaliation.”

Knights do not believe that Iran’s reticence is due to the hope of reviving the nuclear deal under Joe Biden. “Iran saw that a new president could cancel such agreements in the future, and it’s not secure,” says Knights. “However, Iran needs sanctions relief, and they will push Biden for it. We know that if Iran does not get US attention, it might switch to testing the US, for example, with such things as arresting dual nationals or taking action in the Gulf states.”