TEHRAN, Iran, June 19 (World Daily Times) — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out drone attacks on Gulf countries hosting American forces, Reuters reported, citing eight Iraqi sources.
The account matters because it suggests a deliberate effort to move violence through smaller, harder-to-detect networks rather than through the better-known militia chains that Iraq, the United States, and Gulf governments have watched for years. Iraqi officials cited by Reuters said the point was to preserve plausible deniability, shift blame away from major Iran-backed groups, and reduce pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.
According to the Reuters report, the cells were formed to avoid detection and to operate outside established militia structures. Three of the Iraqi sources described them as three or four groups, each with about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite fighters. Reuters said some members were drawn from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions, but that the new cells reported directly to the IRGC rather than to that umbrella network.
Reuters also reported that three Iraqi security sources said at least seven drone attacks were launched from desert areas near Basra and Samawa in southern Iraq. Those sources said the attacks happened between April 20 and May 17 and were aimed at sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The sources said they relied on human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered at launch sites.
For regional security officials, the significance is not only the reported attacks themselves but the method described by the sources. A small, covert cell structure can make it harder to trace responsibility and easier for a sponsor to deny control. In a region where drones have become a common tool in shadow conflicts, that raises the risk that attacks can start in one country and create pressure far beyond its borders.
The report did not include a response from the IRGC, the Iraqi government, or the governments of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It also did not identify any arrests, charges or court proceedings tied to the alleged cells.
