Pentagon Officials Believe Iran Attacked Islamic State Forces in Iraq
U.S. Not Coordinating With Iran on Airstrikes
Iran launched airstrikes in recent days against Islamic State forces along its border with Iraq, American and Iranian officials said in the first public disclosure that the biggest U.S. rival in the region has used its own air force to attack the Sunni extremist group.
The airstrikes by Iranian Air Force F-4 jets marked a step up in the country’s direct military involvement in Iraq to influence the outcome of the U.S.-led fight to defeat the regional threat.
The scope and impact of the attacks remained unclear, and U.S. officials offered muted support for the limited strikes against Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
“I think it is self-evident that if Iran is taking on ISIL in some particular place, and it’s confined to taking on ISIL, and it has an impact, the net effect is positive,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in Brussels during a meeting of nearly 60 nations that have joined forces with the U.S. to combat Islamic State.
In Tehran, Iranian politician Hamid Reza Taraghi said in an interview that the nation’s jet fighters had inflicted significant damage on Islamic State forces in an operation carried out without consulting the U.S.
“Iran bombed [Islamic State] independently, without coordination with the coalition led by the Americans,” he said.
America and its allies have relied heavily on airstrikes to battle Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria. The coalition has carried out more than 1,000 strikes across the region since August.
On the ground in Iraq, Iran has played a pivotal role in the fight against Islamic State forces by providing Baghdad with aircraft, battlefield support and strategic advice from Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard’s overseas operations known as the Qods Force.
During a string of major battles, Mr. Soleimani has been photographed openly meeting, eating, praying and directing Shiite militia fighters and even Iranian regulars during battle.
The U.S. has gone to great lengths to avoid coordinating with Iran in the fight against Islamic State forces in Iraq. On Wednesday, American military officials expressed concerns that increased Iranian involvement could fuel sectarian tensions.
“The message to Iran hasn’t changed: If you’re going to play in this, then you need to do it in a way that doesn’t further inflame sectarian tensions,” one senior defense official said.
U.S. officials said they weren't currently coordinating with Iran on these strikes.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that policy is one he’s “confident will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. “But at this point our calculation on the wisdom of cooperating with Iran is unchanged. We’re not going to do it,” Mr. Earnest said.
He said he has no reason to doubt the accuracy of reports that Iran struck targets in Iraq. While the U.S. is deeply concerned about the safety of American military personnel also carrying out airstrikes in Iraq, the administration still believes it is “not necessarily in the best interests of our military personnel to be sharing intelligence or cooperating militarily” with Iran.
IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, an online magazine, said footage shown on Al Jazeera appeared to show an F-4 Phantom II jet hitting Iraq’s eastern Diyala Province along the Iranian border. In the region, only Iran and Turkey have such fighter jets, Jane’s said, and Turkey’s reluctance to get involved in the regional war makes it likely the jet came from Iran.
Iran has already provided Iraq with ground-attack aircraft believed to be piloted at times by Iranian pilots. The footage provided the first video evidence of direct Iranian Air Force involvement, Jane’s said.
“There appear to be two parallel military campaigns being waged against the Islamic State, with the United States and its allies conducting their air campaign over Iraq and Syria, and Iran pursuing its own military agenda in Iraq at the same time,” wrote IHS Jane’s analyst Gareth Jennings. “Should they happen to cross paths over the coming weeks and months it would no doubt muddy still further an already complicated conflict.”
In recent months, influential voices in Tehran have expressed concerns that Islamic State militants could endanger Iran’s security, including its oil riches.
In a June study, the Institute for International Energy Studies—a key government research center—warned of a “threat of ISIS’s advancement to Iran’s borders and [of] possible disruption in oil fields production and development in western Iran.”
Iran’s Khuzestan province, which borders Iraq, is home to much of the country’s oil production, which is generating the majority of export revenue.
The regional Shiite powerhouse has played an important role in Iraqi politics since the U.S. invasion in 2003—sometimes by working at odds with Washington, and at other times with Washington’s with tacit encouragement.
During the nearly decadelong U.S. occupation of Iraq, Iran actively worked to destabilize its neighbor through proxy militias and puppet political parties.
Shiite-dominated militias such as the Badr Corps—which was founded in Iran during the country’s war with Iraq in the 1980s—attacked U.S. troops as well as the country’s Sunni minority, which cooperated with Sunni jihadist groups such as al Qaeda and remnants of the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein.
As the U.S. withdrew, the Badr Corps transformed itself into a political party known as the Badr Organization, a group whose loyalists populate important positions throughout the security services.
After Islamic State began its aggressive assault in June, a Badr leader was elected to the powerful post of Interior Minister, giving Iran a direct channel of influence into Iraq’s fight against Islamic State.
Beyond Badr, Iran also enjoys considerable influence through its funding of a smaller militias that have played essential roles in the latest fight against Islamic State.
While U.S. officials claim to not coordinate directly with Iran, Iranian-backed groups have often picked up where U.S. airstrikes have left off. That is mostly because Iraq’s U.S.-trained military remains incapable of challenging Islamic State on its own.
There was little immediate reaction from other countries in the region, many of whom are wary of any Iranian advances.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. But the kingdom, which has joined airstrikes against Islamic State militants, said that fighting the militant group would take a long time and continued efforts.
“We believe that these efforts require the presence of combat troops on the ground,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said at a ministerial meeting for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition in the Belgian capital Brussels. “To this end, moderate forces in Syria, represented by the Free Syrian Army, must be strengthened.”
As Islamic State militants first made advances in Iraq over the summer, Saudi Arabia gave an apparent warning to Iran by saying outside powers shouldn’t intervene in the conflict.