Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, the Israeli military spokesman, said the army has had “almost complete success” in preventing Iranian drones from hitting Israeli targets.
The drones fired from Iraq are believed to be from the Iranian regime-controlled Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). An umbrella organization of Shia terrorists, which attacked Israel with drones in 2024 during Israel’s war against the Tehran-backed Hamas movement.
A mourner holds a portrait of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (above-L) on March 5, 2026, during a funeral procession for members of the Iraqi pro-Iranian paramilitary group Hezbollah Brigades (Kataeb Hezbollah) who were killed in an attack in Baghdad the day before. The Tehran-backed Iraqi group Kataeb Hezbollah said on March 5 that one of its commanders had been killed in an attack in southern Iraq the day before. (Ahmed Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
The official continued: “Over the past two decades, Iran has systematically taken over the state, weaponizing so-called institutions into tools to protect the Shiite regime in Baghdad and punish any threat to it, including the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Through Baghdad and state institutions, the country has economically strangled the Kurdistan region, stripped our autonomy and exposed us to more attacks.”
An attack on the country’s shrinking Christian community was reported. Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, from the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, wrote Thursday on
Kurdistan Regional Government authorities confirmed the attack and said it was carried out by two drones.
ISRAEL PUNCHES HEZBOLLAH OBJECTIVES AND DARES LEBANON TO RECOVER SOVEREIGNTY FROM IRAN-SUPPORTED TERROR PROXY
A drone strike hit an oil field operated by US company HKN Energy in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Thursday, causing a fire and halting production, according to a Reuters report citing security sources and an oilfield engineer.
No group claimed responsibility, but Kurdish officials accused Iran-linked Iraqi militias of carrying out the attack.
If so, the attack would mean that Iran-linked Iraqi militias, who have vowed revenge for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, have expanded their targets from US military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan to US energy interests.
A mourner holds a portrait of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (above-L) on March 5, 2026, during a funeral procession for members of the Iraqi pro-Iranian paramilitary group Hezbollah Brigades (Kataeb Hezbollah) who were killed in an attack in Baghdad the day before. The Tehran-backed Iraqi group Kataeb Hezbollah said on March 5 that one of its commanders had been killed in an attack in southern Iraq the day before. (Ahmed Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
Production at the field was halted as a precaution after an explosion in the power unit, the engineer told Reuters.
Some energy companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan have shut oil and gas production at their fields as a precaution after the US and Israel launched attacks on neighboring Iran.
Qanbar said there is a way to change Iraq’s behavior: “If the United States wants to stop this situation, there are clear tools available. Sanctions should be imposed on the Iraqi government for financing these militias. Another powerful mechanism concerns Iraqi oil revenues, which are deposited with the US Federal Reserve. The United States could suspend the transfer of those funds unless Baghdad stops financing the PMF. Kurdistan, US interests, Gulf states or military bases are actually paid by the Iraqi government,” he claimed.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani chairs negotiations between Iraq and the United States to end the International Coalition Mission in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 27, 2024. President Joe Biden will host Al Sudani on Monday, April 15, for talks that come as tensions have risen in the Middle East over the war in Gaza and Iran’s threats to retaliate for an Israeli military attack on an Iranian facility in Syria. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, swimming pool)
Asked whether the Islamic Republic of Iran had urged PMF Shiite militias to fire drones at Israel, a spokesperson for Iran’s UN mission said: “The mission declined to comment.”
On Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said his government “will not tolerate any attempt aimed at drawing Iraq into war or threatening the stability of the country,” according to Kurdistan24.
Iranian-backed Shia fighter groups celebrate in the streets after the IRGC attack on Israel in Basra, Iraq, October 1, 2024. (Essam Al-Sudani/Reuters)
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein claimed the government was trying to convince Iran-backed militias to disarm by January 2025. the Long War Journal.
However, the Iraqi government has spread mixed messages about the PMF over the years. In May 2025, al-Sudani said: “Today the Popular Mobilization Forces are a basic force in the defense of Iraq.”
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The Times of Israel reported on Thursday, after military strikes eliminated a senior officer of Kataeb Hezbollah – Iraq’s largest pro-Iranian militia – south of Baghdad, that PMF militias vowed to damage the Middle East interests of European countries that had joined the “Zionist-American” attacks on the Islamic Republic and its allies.
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