Activation of Iran's Iraqi Non-State Allies Against Iraqi Kurdish Oil Facilities Highlights Latent and Residual Regional Strike Capabilities
🇮🇷 🇮🇶 🇺🇸 Iran and the "Axis of Resistance" are down but not out
Since the ceasefire ending the Iran-Israel War ceasefire took hold, the veiled strike capabilities of Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies appear to have been activated despite a protracted de facto moratorium on strike operations against both the United States and Israel. While Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies regularly launched Iranian-supplied propeller-driven strike drones and cruise missiles against Israel in 2024, the first half of 2025 was, for the most part, uneventful. In large part, this dynamic reflects the aftermath of the Iran-Israel exchanges in October 2024, followed as it was by Donald Trump’s re-election, and, not least, the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus in a context in which Israel had functionally brought Hizballah to its knees. Faced with this confluence of events, Iran appears to have directed its Iraqi non-state allies to stand down, bide their time, and be prepared to employ their Iranian-supplied strike capabilities in an unexpected future round of strike operations.
When a long-expected but hitherto forever deferred war involving both Israel and the United States finally materialized, Iran found itself subject to a decisive Israeli surprise attack. For reasons that are not public knowledge, Iranian decision-makers appear to have decided against the activation of Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies against Israel and/or the United States. In part, this decision may have been shaped by the American decision to preemptively evacuate its embassies in Iraq and Jordan in anticipation of potential Iranian retaliatory action against American personnel. In a similar vein, the United States evacuated most of its military aircraft from locations such as al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar in anticipation of potential Iranian retaliatory action against American military personnel during an Iran-Israel War. At the same time, President Donald Trump appeared to be ambivalent about intervening for most of the Iran-Israel War, and ultimately authorized a limited-scale one-and-done set of air and missile strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.
For decision-makers in Tehran, “preemptively” targeting the United States following the Israeli surprise attack would have only guaranteed total American involvement in the Iran-Israel War while unrestricted retaliatory strikes—following the targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the United States—against American personnel and interests in the region similarly risked total American involvement in what remained for the most part a war between Iran and Israel. With no realistic path to any meaningful victory over Israel, not least in a context in which the United States had already extended to Israel a formidable ballistic missile defence backstop, Iranian decision-makers seemingly decided against activating Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies and the strike capabilities that Iran has, in effect, forward-deployed on Iraqi territory in much the same manner as they seemingly decided against activating Ansarallah in Yemen and Hizballah in Lebanon despite Iran’s rather precarious military position. Ultimately, the Iran-Israel War is likely to have played out in a manner that Iranian military planners and Iranian decision-makers never intended: with Iran fighting Israel alone, with Iran’s non-state allies on the sidelines, and, not least, with the United States refraining from an extensive and sustained strike campaign against Iran in a manner that would amount to an all-out Iran-America War in which Iran would have every incentive to both activate its non-state allies and also undertake unrestricted strikes against the Gulf Arab states.
While Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies remained on the sidelines during the Iran-Israel War, significant latent and residual regional strike capabilities appear to have remained in place within Iraq and Iran remains well-positioned to quickly transfer additional munitions across the international border. In the areas of central and western Iraq in which Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies have a regular presence, Iran has access to a series of de facto forward deployment areas through which Iranian strike munitions that may otherwise have insufficient range to target Israel from Iranian territory can be productively used against Israel. Additionally, Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies can employ shorter-range Iranian strike munitions against American personnel and interests in Iraq itself and do so in a manner that offers Tehran a modicum of plausible deniability.
Although Iran retains the option of activating its Iraqi non-state allies to target Israel in retaliatory strikes at a time when Iran’s longer-range strike munitions arsenal has been depleted and many of the relevant production facilities taken offline following Israeli attacks, Iranian decision-makers appear to have activated Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies for a different purpose: to target oil facilities in parts of Iraq under the control of the (Iraqi) Kurdistan Regional Government, including oil facilities that are owned by or associated with American financial interests. It is possible, even likely, that these operations amount to an undeclared Iranian campaign against an (Iraqi) Kurdistan Regional Government for, as Iran has long alleged, harbouring Israel’s Mossad and, in so doing, enabling Israeli covert operations across the border in Iran. Iran is no stranger to openly targeting what it considers to be hostile actors and interests in Iraq’s Kurdish region and undertook single-day operations involving ballistic missile launches in both September 2018 and January 2024.
Whatever Iran’s exact motives, several days of strike drone launches in July 2025 are reported to have temporarily taken some 200,000 barrels per day of oil production offline in parts of Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (including oil production voluntarily taken offline at undamaged facilities). Iran’s regional strike capabilities, including the strike capabilities in the hands of Iran’s non-state allies across the Middle East, may be inadequate for use against the combination of Israeli and American air and missile defences, but nevertheless remain potent against more proximate targets that do not benefit from such a high density of fully-alerted defences.
The above two videos highlight the potential for destruction in a context in which strike drones—and other strike munitions—do not encounter many, if any, air defences or global navigation satellite system (GNSS) jamming and/or spoofing. While these Iranian-built strike drones are not difficult to shoot down, basic anti-aircraft capabilities, which can be as simple as a manually directed machine gun or autocannon, have a maximum effective range of no more than two or four kilometers and must be deployed in very large numbers to protect each and every site. Whereas many types of industrial facilities tend to be concentrated in one area, oil extraction facilities can be dispersed over a large area and can, therefore, be very difficult to uniformly protect.
The strike drone in the above video, which notably features an X-shaped (cruciform) tail, is either an Iranian-built Meraj-532 or a larger and longer-range Shahed-107. The Shahed-107, which was employed by Iran against Israel in the Iran-Israel War, is understood be be a development of the Shahed-101, which has a V-shaped tail.
The Shahed-101 and Shahed-107 are much smaller strike drone designs than the better-known Shahed-136 and its smaller predecessor, the Shahed-131, which are both cropped delta wing designs. While all of these designs originate from Shahed Aviation Industries, the Shahed-101 and Shahed-107 occupy a peculiar and so-far distinctly Iranian niche of delivering a 10-15 kg payload over a distance of 1000 or more kilometers. The Shahed-136, in contrast, is reportedly capable of delivering a 50-kilogram warhead over a nominal maximum range of 2000 kilometers in its baseline configuration.
Although Iran is understood to operate both the Shahed-101 and Shahed-107 within Iran, these and other smaller and lighter Iranian strike drone designs are primarily associated with Iran’s non-state allies across the Middle East. In the hands of Iran’s non-state allies and in what amounts to de facto forward deployment areas for Iranian strike munitions, the Shahed-101, Shahed-107, and several conceptually similar designs constitute low-cost and relatively compact long-range strike munitions that can be more readily concealed and transported than much larger long-range strike munitions capable of delivering a significantly larger payload. While the small warheads carried by the Shahed-101 and Shahed-107 result in limited destructive effects and a limited destructive radius, 10-15 kilogram class high explosive-fragmentation warheads are suitable for harassment strikes against oil and gas facilities and other forms of fixed/stationary critical infrastructure. This allows Iran to undertake highly calibrated long-range strikes in a manner that cannot be done with, for example, a cruise missile or ballistic missile equipped with a 400-500 kilogram-class high explosive-fragmentaiton warhead. When the primary objectives are deterrence and coercion, it can pay to have strike munitions that are unlikely to destroy most potential targets.
Iran’s own “sub-conventional war” strike arsenal has only previously been tested once—against Saudi oil facilities in 2019—when Shahed-131 strike drones were employed in a limited-scale surprise attack alongside Paveh land-attack cruise missiles. The current small-scale campaign seemingly undertaken by Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies highlights Iran’s capability to undertake limited-scale and fairly low signature strikes against distributed oil and gas facilities that are very difficult to defend against. Because the maximum potential for damage is limited, Iran has an element of escalation dominance—which target is willing to risk general war and even more damage when the damage inflicted is primarily of nuisance value? With Iran’s non-state allies seemingly carrying out such strikes, Iran can also claim a modicum of plausible deniability and offers its services as a “peacemaker” capable of telling its non-state allies to stand down.
The recent strike drone attacks on oil facilities in parts of Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government highlight the latent and residual regional strike capabilities that remain in the hands of both Iran and Iran’s non-state allies. The Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” may be down and will likely remain quite impotent against the combination of American and Israeli military power for the foreseeable future, all while remaining a potent threat to everyone else in the region.