All Policy Analysis by Hamdi Malik

Iraqi "resistance" elements are becoming more bellicose in their rhetoric against the American presence, signaling a new level of escalation against U.S. troops as part of their efforts to support Hamas in the Gaza war.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and their facade group partners may soon step up their attacks amid the Hamas-Israel war, albeit within limits set by Iran.

The "Jazira" brand has begun claiming, through very transparent communiques, that it is undertaking rocket attacks on U.S. bases in Syria.

The Telegram brand that emerged in October 2023 is not a group per se, but rather a generic name used to denote unity among Iran-backed armed groups and deemphasize their individual identities during attacks spurred by the Gaza war.

A new Telegram account claiming anti-U.S. attacks is linked to Iran's Qods Force and other designated terrorist organizations.

Iran's proxies undertook two drone attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, and the related social media operations suggest that Iran's Qods Force played a coordinating function.

The Iraqi "resistance" is using language that previously presaged attacks on U.S. targets, whether sincerely or as a supportive bluff amid the latest Hamas-Israel crisis.

Iran-backed militias within the Coordination Framework are leading the call to criminalize alternative lifestyles and celebrating the murder of a queer Iraqi through their social media platforms.

Diyala is the one area where the CF's main militia politicians are competing, with the upstart Qais al-Khazali trying to challenge his elders Hadi al-Ameri and Faleh al-Fayyad in their tribal home province.

Badr, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and Nouri al-Maliki are testing each other's strength in the south but mostly hanging together in the north.

Tensions between Iraq's "resistance" groups are on the rise, with Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba claiming that its online platforms and street protests are being targeted.

While one leading militia spearheaded online vitriol against a social media ban that affected its affiliates, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah seemed more inclined to compromise.

Formed by Ashab al-Kahf and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, this Persian-named violent protest movement has been used to carry out threats against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

The militia entity has created a new Persian-named protest group and called on mobs to storm the embassy compound.

The March kidnapping has been widely attributed to Kataib Hezbollah, while most militia commentators link the incident to supposed Israeli spying.

Iran's senior Revolutionary Guard operator in Kirkuk and religious-political leader Ammar al-Hakim were recently brought in to mediate between feuding state-paid militias.

Efforts are being made to create new brands for anti-American "resistance" on Iraqi soil, even as politically connected militias try to distance themselves from kinetic attacks on U.S. targets.

The group has been posting more theatrical messages to suggest it is a real armed "resistance" movement, but without any evidence of actual kinetic operations.

The group stopped hinting and actually took credit for the 2017 murder of U.S. soldier Alexander Missildine, who was then supporting Iraqi combat operations to liberate territory from the Islamic State.

By establishing this Iraqi version of an Iranian IRGC conglomerate, militias aim to quickly dominate the country's growing economy.