Profile: Saraya Awliya al-Dam

Open image

Name: Saraya Awliya al-Dam (SAD) (Companies of the Guardians of Blood).

Type of movement: Minor facade group. Kinetic military operations. Domestic counter-U.S. operations.

History and objectives:

• SAD first came to attention when it claimed an August 24, 2020, attack on a convoy of Iraqi trucks allegedly carrying U.S. goods. Dramatic video of the incident was posted to the group's own channel. SAD claimed another convoy attack the following month, this time via a branded statement posted to Sabereen News on September 8.
• By October 2020, the group appeared to be defunct, but on January 26, 2021, Sabereen posted claims that SAD had once again targeted U.S. convoys. Further claims were posted on February 2, this time accompanied by a branded statement.
• In the early hours of February 16, 2021, Sabereen broke the news that SAD was claiming a rocket attack on coalition forces in Erbil. One minute later, the Sabereen account posted a statement purporting to be from SAD and formally claiming responsibility. An official, branded statement by SAD was posted later that day, again via Sabereen. Yet Kurdish intelligence later extracted confessions from accused perpetrators who claimed to belong to Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS). The U.S. government has stated that it believes KSS and Kataib Hezbollah (KH) carried out the Erbil attack.

Open image

• On May 30, 2024, SAD issued imagery (Figure 1) of two Iranian-made Shahed-101 X-wing drones and claimed to have attacked "two separate vital targets in Haifa harbor." There was no independent confirmation of this attack on Israel, and the Iraqi umbrella group Islamic Resistance in Iraq did not claim such an attack on that day. The three clerics shown in photographs on the wall behind the drones are Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq. 
• In June 2024, subsequent SAD videos were released showing other martyr images in the same underground den, apparently with the same two Shahed-101 drones.

Chain of command:

• The preponderance of evidence shows that SAD is linked to KSS and KH given each group's apparent involvement in the February 2021 Erbil attack.

Affiliate relationships:

• Sabereen News

Subordinate elements:

• SAD has a media channel on Telegram that appears to be official. This channel is not influential, however, posting just four statements and one attack video between August 2020 and March 2021. The majority of the group's claims and statements are published by Sabereen News, which has a vastly larger audience.