Iraqi militia drone strike on Israeli troops mirrors Tower 22 incident

Israel announced Friday that a drone launched from Iraq on Thursday killed two Israeli soldiers and injured 24, two seriously, at a military base in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The attack marked the first time that a drone fired from Iraq into Israel resulted in fatalities. It also bears many striking similarities to another drone strike earlier this year on American troops stationed in neighboring Jordan.

The Israeli military's military investigation into Thursday's incident found that the militias used two explosive drones in the attack. Israeli air defense successfully shot down one of them. However, the second hit its target undetected a few minutes later and caused fatalities. The military determined that the soldiers had not received a request to take cover and is currently investigating why this was the case.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq (IRI) claimed responsibility for the attack. IRI is the umbrella term for Iranian-backed Iraqi militias that oppose Israel and the US military presence in Iraq and Syria.

US troops at the Tower 22 facility in northeast Jordan on the Syrian border also received no warning when an IRI drone launched from Syria hit their base on January 28th. Three US soldiers died when the explosive drone hit their sleeping quarters, along with another 47 sustained injuries.

The U.S. military's initial military assessment of the attack concluded that U.S. forces were unlikely to have detected the militia drone “due to its low trajectory.” Additionally, the facility lacked adequate air defense to combat such threats. Yet these American troops, like Israeli troops in the Golan on Thursday, had no warning or chance to take cover.

Both incidents were the first of hundreds of IRI attacks against Israeli and US troops that resulted in fatalities. The IRI began firing rockets and drones at U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria shortly after the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October 2023. The attack on Tower 22 was preceded by at least 150 attacks against U.S. troops in those countries, in which some were injured.

The IRI also launched several drones and cruise missiles against Israel in the months leading up to Thursday's incident, invariably exaggerating the effectiveness of many of these attacks. In total, they reported 170 attacks on Israeli targets last year. Interestingly, an estimated 70 percent of these occurred in September of this year, which coincided with the start of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The US retaliated for the attack on Tower 22 on February 2nd. In a series of devastating strikes using drones and B-1 Lancer heavy bombers, the U.S. Air Force struck 85 suspected militia targets in seven locations in Syria and Iraq; four in the former and three in the latter. An estimated 40 IRI militiamen were killed in the attacks.

At the time of writing, Israel has not directly responded to the IRI drone strike. It is unclear whether Israel will respond with a rare attack on Iraqi territory since that is where the drones came from. Israel has repeatedly targeted the IRI and a variety of other Iranian-backed militias over the last decade, as well as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria. This campaign has intensified significantly since October 2023. Iran-backed militias were bombed in Iraq in 2019, but these attacks appear to have been isolated incidents.

The US may want to deter Israel from striking back in Iraq. Unlike the 900-strong troop presence in Syria, the US deployment in Iraq is carried out in consultation and coordination with the central government in Baghdad. In addition, the U.S. and Iraq are negotiating the future status of U.S. troops in the country, more than a decade after they returned to the country to help Baghdad fight the notorious Islamic State group. Israeli attacks on Iraqi territory during a US withdrawal could complicate the situation for Washington there and put political pressure on Baghdad to take a firm stance against the American military presence.

Following Iran's unprecedented ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday, these Iran-backed Iraqi groups bluntly warned that US bases in Iraq would come under fire again if the US joins an Israeli retaliatory strike against Iran or if Israel attacks Iraq uses airspace for attacks against Iran. Israeli warplanes may have used Iraqi airspace to fire air-launched ballistic missiles at Iran in retaliation for Tehran's first direct missile and drone attack on Israel in April.

Interestingly, the Middle East Eye news agency published an interesting report on Thursday revealing that pro-Iranian political and armed factions in Iraq fear an Israeli attack on the country because they fear it could lead to the collapse of the government. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani “has tried to deprive the Israelis of any pretext that could be used to attack Iraq,” an adviser told the newspaper.

“Any rash action in the coming days will have a high price and could destroy everything,” the adviser added.

Thursday's attack could well give Israel a pretext for attack. Whether or not this will be the case remains to be seen, as the entire region comes closer than ever to the calamity of all-out war.