On Sunday, Iraq’s Security Media Cell said that two drones were intercepted by air defenses at al-Asad air base.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
JUNE 6, 2021 10:00
US forces in Iraq face increasing drone threats tied to Iran. This has been known for months, since drones first began appearing among pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. Initially used by Kataib Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian groups in Iraq to threaten Saudi Arabia, they have now been turned on the US. On June 6, reports from Iraq’s Security Media Cell said that two drones were intercepted by air defenses at al-Asad air base. On May 8, a drone also targeted the same base, allegedly flown by pro-Iran militias targeting US forces.
In April, a drone attack targeted a secret CIA hangar in Erbil at the international airport, inside the sprawling coalition base. The full details of the attack were only discovered later in a report by The Washington Post. Iran also used drones to target Kurdish dissidents in Koya in Iraq in 2018. Now the militias are turning their drones on US forces. This is after two years in which the militias used 107mm and 122mm rockets to target US facilities. Initially these attacks targeted the numerous facilities the US had at places like Q-West, K-1 and other Iraqi bases used for the fight against ISIS. After US retaliatory airstrikes and increasing calls for the US to leave Iraq, the US consolidated forces at Al-Asad, Baghdad and Erbil. Iran then turned its attention to those sites.
The pro-Iran militias in Iraq are part of the PMU or Hashd al-Shaabi, an official paramilitary force. These groups have threatened the Iraqi prime minister and killed protesters and behave like an Iraqi version of Iran’s IRGC. They are linked to Hezbollah in Lebanon as well. They have threatened Israel in recent years. In 2018 and 2019, Iran sent them ballistic missiles. Israel’s prime minister said in late May that an Iranian drone that flew into Israeli air space and was shot down near Beit Shean came from Iraq or Syria. The Iraq connection raises questions about militia involvement.
Not much is known about the US air defenses at al-Asad. The US has C-RAM and Patriot systems, but there may be other air defenses as well. US and partner forces have practiced with jamming and other technologies to stop drone attacks. In July 2019, US Marines on the USS Boxer used a special jamming kit on an MRZR called a MADIS system to take down an Iranian drone.
The New York Times reported over the weekend about the rising Iran drone threat. The report noted that “Michael P. Mulroy, a former CIA officer and top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, said that with technology provided by Iran’s Quds Force — the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus — the drones are rapidly becoming more sophisticated at a relatively low cost. ‘The drones are a big deal, one of the most significant threats our troops there face,’ he said.” Iraqis also warned of the threat.
A senior Iraqi national security official said the drones posed a challenge, but were tools, not the heart of the problem. “At least three times in the past two months, those militias have used small, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in late-night attacks on Iraqi bases — including those used by the CIA and US Special Operations units, according to American officials,” the report says. These include the April 14 attack on the CIA in Erbil. On May 8, the attack on Asad base, “where the United States also operates Reaper drones…also raised concerns among American commanders about militias’ shifting tactics. The attack caused no injuries but damaged an aircraft hangar, according to Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the US-led coalition in Iraq.”
According to the piece, on May 11 “another drone struck just after midnight at an airfield in Harir, north of Erbil, that is used by the military’s highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command. The explosive-laden drone crashed, causing no injuries or damage, coalition officials said, but fueled the growing worries.” This attack on June 6 would then be attack number four.
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Iran has boasted about its drone abilities in recent years. Iranian drone operations date from the 1980s when Iran used drones in the war with Iraq. Its Ababil and Mohajer series have been around for decades. However, recent years have seen more Iranian drones of the Shahed and other series that are more sophisticated. Iran says it can now arm them with missiles. More dangerous are the kamikaze drones, based on an Ababil model, that Iran exported to the Houthis in Yemen as the “Qasef” and to Hamas as the Shahed.
Not all the details are known about the latest attack or the previous three. Several years ago, the US established the Iran Material Display at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling, which locals call the “petting zoo.” Here there are Iranian drones, such as what the display says is a Shahed 123. There are parts of other Houthi drones that are based on Iranian models as well.
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/irans-proxies-in-iraq-increase-drone-war-against-us-forces-670231.