By Anas al-Bar | 2025-04-30

The Iranian regime has for the first time armed its proxy militias in Iraq with long-range surface-to-surface missiles, according to regional intelligence sources monitoring the Iran-Iraq border.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force orchestrated the early April transfer, which included shorter-range Quds-351 cruise missiles and Jamal-69 ballistic missiles, British newspaper The Times reported April 8.

The weapons were delivered primarily to Harakat al-Nujaba and Kataib Hizbullah storage facilities, political researcher Abdul Qader al-Nayel told Al-Fassel.

The militias and allied proxies maintain arms depots in Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad, the Samawah desert in al-Muthanna province, the Akashat complex in Anbar province near the Syrian border and Ninawa province, al-Nayel said.

The delivery of long-range munitions adds to an already substantial arsenal of missiles and Iranian-made drones, including the Shahed-136 and the Samad-based KAS-04 and its al-Arfad variant, he said.

Baghdad's authority challenged

The delivery reveals Tehran's determination to "turn Iraqi territory into an arena for conflict" while directly challenging Baghdad's foreign policy and attempts to distance itself from regional conflicts, al-Nayel said.

The move reflects the Iranian regime's enduring "hostile policy toward Iraq, its neighbors and the world," he said.

"The continued arming of these proxies is definitive proof that the Tehran regime is deceitful and evasive," he added.

"If the regime were serious about proving its good faith, it would have moved to cut off arms supplies to its proxies and heeded the pressure to disband them and end their unlawful presence."

Tehran appears determined "to defy international will and to threaten regional and international security" through its militia network, despite declining regional influence and the loss of key allies, according to al-Nayel.

Calls for militia disarmament

The transfer of missiles to Iraqi proxies comes amid intensifying demands from Iraqi political and religious figures for militia disarmament and the dismantling of Tehran-linked military structures in Iraq.

Baghdad is steadily moving toward making military action the sole prerogative of the Iraqi state, Lebanese security expert Saeed al-Qazah told Iraq's Shafaq News.

"State sovereignty over its territory demands that no armed force exist outside the framework of the state," al-Qazah said.

The push for a state monopoly on weapons aims to "protect Iraq from the dangers of security breakdown, widespread civilian arms possession and the proliferation of factions loyal to foreign countries," he added.

Iraq's most senior Shia cleric Ali al-Sistani has called for bringing all weapons under state authority.

This move would "ensure the proper functioning of legitimate institutions and prevent the kind of devastation and destruction that befell Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen," al-Qazah said.