TEHRAN, Iran, June 19 (World Daily Times) — A Reuters report that says Iran’s Revolutionary Guards built secretive cells inside Iraq to carry out drone attacks on Gulf neighbors points to a more hidden and harder-to-trace phase of regional proxy warfare.
Reuters, citing eight Iraqi sources including military officials, a security official and local militia commanders, reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps created three or four cells of about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite fighters each. The sources said the goal was to bypass established militia networks and avoid detection.
If accurate, the account suggests the IRGC was trying to make attacks harder to trace back to Tehran and to its better-known allies in Iraq. That matters because the Iraqi officials cited by Reuters said the new groups operated outside the command structure of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters, and reported directly to the IRGC.
That separation also carries political weight in Baghdad. Iraqi officials quoted by Reuters said the arrangement could give the IRGC plausible deniability and reduce pressure on the Iraqi government to disarm Iran-backed militias. In practical terms, it would make it easier to blame shadowy local cells rather than the larger groups that public officials already face pressure to rein in.
The report also raises the security stakes for Iraq’s neighbors. Reuters said three Iraqi security sources linked at least seven drone attacks to desert launch sites near Basra and Samawa in southern Iraq. The sources said the attacks, carried out between April 20 and May 17, targeted sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Those countries all host American forces, which helps explain why the alleged cell structure matters beyond Iraq. Small, compartmentalized groups can be harder to monitor than larger militias, especially when they operate from desert areas and report through a separate chain of command. Reuters said the Iraqi security sources relied on human intelligence, intercepted communications and evidence gathered from the launch sites.
The report does not identify any arrests, charges or public court case tied to the alleged cells. It also does not say which specific attack was linked to which group, leaving open questions about the scale of the operation and how much direct control the IRGC had over each strike. Even so, the account adds to broader concerns in the Gulf that drone threats can be organized in ways meant to blur responsibility and slow any response.
