Tehran’s arms: suicide attacks or a show of force?
Tehran established, armed, and financed the “axis of resistance” for a moment like this.
Shiite armed groups in Lebanon and Iraq have expanded their role in the war involving the United States and Israel, showing that the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” remains capable of carrying out attacks despite the heavy blows it suffered during the Gaza war.
The attacks of recent days reveal that these groups, long armed and financed by Iran and loyal to its Shiite leadership, are now helping Tehran escalate the war across the region.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah launched their first coordinated missile attack against Israel. The Lebanese group fired about 200 rockets, of which Israel said only two landed inside its territory.
Three Iraqi security sources and two sources close to Shiite armed factions said Shiite fighters in Iraq have intensified drone and missile attacks against American interests in the country over the past three or four days.
However, Yemen’s Houthi movement, an ally of Tehran, has not yet entered the conflict. The heavily armed group has the capacity to disrupt maritime navigation around the Arabian Peninsula, as demonstrated during the Gaza war when it targeted ships in the Red Sea and launched attacks against Israel. Houthi attacks could further disrupt global oil markets, especially after Saudi Arabia redirected its exports to the Red Sea following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Last week, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said the group was ready to intervene militarily if developments required it.
The alliance that Tehran calls the “axis of resistance” suffered major setbacks after the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The attack triggered a war that dealt severe blows to the Palestinian movement as well as to the Lebanese Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel. The successive repercussions also contributed to the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, removing one of the pillars of the axis.
According to Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center, “Iran built the axis for a moment like this,” describing the situation as an “existential war” for Iran and Hezbollah. The Lebanese group joined the fighting even though its military strength remains far below what it was in 2023. He added: “If the Iranian regime is destroyed, nothing of this axis will remain.”
Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said that Wednesday’s Hezbollah attack included the launch of 200 rockets and 20 drones.
He told reporters on Thursday: “There is no contradiction between the fact that we have significantly weakened Hezbollah’s capabilities over the past three years and the fact that it remains an influential and dangerous force.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said Washington “strongly condemns the attacks carried out by Iran and Iranian-backed terrorist militias against diplomatic, military, and civilian infrastructure in Iraq, including the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” and fully supports “Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah executing an Iranian plan
Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, thanked the “fighters of the resistance front,” according to a statement released Thursday and read by a presenter on state television. In the statement — the first issued in his name since his appointment as Supreme Leader on Sunday — he said: “We consider the countries of the resistance front our best friends.”
Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, entered the war against Israel on March 2 in retaliation for the killing of Mojtaba’s father, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war.
Israel responded with a new offensive against the group in Lebanon, resulting in more than 600 deaths and the displacement of over 800,000 people.
According to the Israeli military and two well-informed Lebanese sources, the barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah on Wednesday night — the largest since the beginning of this war — coincided with Iran launching ballistic missiles at Israel.
The two Lebanese sources said the coordinated strikes were part of an Iranian contingency plan in the event of a major war, intended to overwhelm and confuse Israeli air defense systems.
Despite the large rocket barrage, Hezbollah’s attacks have so far caused only limited damage. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.
Allied forces in Iraq
Hezbollah long played a central role in Iran’s regional strategy under the leadership of its secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in 2024, supporting Shiite factions in Iraq, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and Yemen’s Houthi movement.
In Iraq, not all Iranian-backed armed factions appear to support attacks against American interests. Reuters reported last week that several fighters and Iranian-backed groups in Iraq have not taken part in the fighting.
However, analysts and officials say a core group of factions aligned with Tehran remains active and capable of exerting pressure.
These factions, operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, announced on Thursday that they had carried out an attack during the previous twenty-four hours involving dozens of drones and missiles against what they described as “occupation bases” in Iraq and the region.
Security officials say these armed groups are also seeking to increase pressure on energy projects and oil fields in southern Iraq, where several American companies and U.S.-linked service firms operate alongside international partners.
Among the reported attacks, two security sources said two drones targeted the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq on Wednesday, which is operated by the American company KBR. No casualties were reported. A field engineer confirmed the attack and said five similar incidents had occurred in less than a week.
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that a diplomatic facility near Baghdad International Airport had been targeted by a drone attack, adding that no injuries were reported. Four security sources told Reuters that the same site had been attacked repeatedly, including on Wednesday.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq also claimed responsibility on Thursday for downing a U.S. military refueling aircraft. U.S. Central Command stated that the aircraft crashed in an incident involving another plane and that the accident was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
According to Andreas Krieg, a lecturer in security studies at King’s College London, although the axis of resistance has weakened since 2023, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite armed factions, and the Houthi movement are still “operating at full capacity.”
He added: “They still retain capabilities, demonstrate very strong determination, and continue to possess considerable resources.”
