In the shadow of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and the accumulation of setbacks for Hezbollah, armed groups in the region allied with the Lebanese militia party and backed by Iran have in recent weeks intensified their attacks on Israel in an apparent attempt to force it. to divert part of their attention and resources to other fronts. The increase in their activity, which to a lesser extent has also been directed against United States positions in the area, occurs after in recent months these same groups had deepened their cooperation and coordination of their actions in response to the offensive. Israeli in Gaza.
The main groups that make up the so-called Axis of Resistance led by Iran, including Hezbollah, the Houthi movement in Yemen and Iraqi factions, already had a joint operations room to coordinate their regional actions, mainly directed against States. United States and Israel, before the war against Gaza. But it has been as a result of this conflict that in recent months they have strengthened their ties and cooperation, including during high-level meetings recently held in Tehran and Baghdad.
One of the areas in which they seem to have invested the most effort is in developing the capabilities of Iraqi combatants in terms of missiles and drones, which are the main means at their disposal to attack Israel. In July, a Houthi drone expert commander was killed in a US strike on an Iraqi base near Baghdad, according to Iranian media. And a month earlier, the Houthis and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of guerrillas backed by Iran, claimed for the first time a joint drone attack against Israel.
The Islamic Resistance groups in Iraq have been precisely those that in recent days have increased the number of attacks on Israel the most, although they sometimes claim actions that it is not clear have occurred. This Monday, in line with their recent pace of activity, they declared that they had hit four targets in Israel with missiles and drones, including two in Haifa. But despite their dozens of attacks, the Iraqi militias have not been able to date to present Israel with a threat similar to that of the Houthis or Hezbollah.
Members of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have also recently threatened to resume their attacks in Iraq against US positions. Between October 2023 and January, more than 170 attacks were recorded against US forces in Iraq and Syria due to Washington’s support for Israel and to try to force its withdrawal from the area. These actions were largely suspended after an attack on a military base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers, but they resumed in mid-July and now threaten to accelerate. Since the expansion of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, Iraqi fighters have also declared their willingness to send assistance and troops to Hezbollah.
Some of these Iraqi groups also appear to be behind recent attacks on US positions in Syria, including at least two attributed to them by Syrian media in the second half of September. In parallel, Syrian opposition media reported on Saturday several unclaimed aerial bombardments against positions and objectives of guerrillas supported by Iran in the province of Deir Ezzor, in the east of the country. And in the past two weeks, Israel, which has been bombing Syria for years, has admitted to carrying out an airstrike near Damascus that killed a leading member of an Iraqi militia. The Israeli army has also recently bombed points on the Syrian-Lebanese border under the pretext of wanting to cut off Hezbollah supply lines.
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From Yemen, the Houthis claimed responsibility for three attacks on Israel over the weekend, including one against Tel Aviv and the nearby Ben-Gurion International Airport, and a fourth against three US warships in the Red Sea. They were all intercepted. On Sunday, Israel bombed Yemen, killing at least four people, according to the local Health Ministry. A similar exchange of blows in July left one dead in Israel and at least 14 in Yemen.
As part of their declared campaign to pressure Israel and its allies to end the war against Gaza, the Houthis have not stopped attacking merchant and warships in the Red Sea, one of the main commercial arteries, since last November. of the world. In mid-September, as a result of these actions, maritime traffic through this route had fallen by almost 70% compared to the previous year, according to data from the Portwatch platform, managed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the University of Oxford.
