Illustrative image. (the Tasnim News Agency)
Brigade General Esmail Qaani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s elite Quds Force, visited Baghdad last month and convinced Iranian-backed armed factions there to halt attacks on United States forces, Reuters reported on February 18, citing multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources.
The Iranian commander met representatives of several factions in Baghdad International Airport on January 29, less than 48 hours after Washington blamed Iranian-backed forces for the killing three U.S. troops at the Tower 22 base in Jordan, the sources said.
According to the sources, Brig. Gen. Qaani did not leave the airport during the visit, fearing he could be targeted in the same location where his predecessor Qassem Soleimani was killed four years earlier.
>“The Iranians learned their lesson from the liquidation of Soleimani and did not want this to be repeated,” the source said.
The commander told the factions that by drawing American blood risked a heavy U.S. response, including strikes on their senior commanders, destruction of key infrastructure or even a direct retaliation against Iran, sources said.
The next day Kataib Hezbollah, the largest of Iranian-backed factions in Iraq, announced it was suspending attacks. However, a smaller but very active faction, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, said that it would continue attacks, arguing that U.S. forces would only leave by force.
Iranian-backed factions, united under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, began launching attacks against U.S. forces in the country and neighboring Syria on October 17 in response to the Israeli war on the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Washington’s unwavering support for it.
There have been no attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since February 4, compared to more than 20 in the two weeks before Qaani’s visit.
“Without Qaani’s direct intervention it would have been impossible to convince Kataib Hezbollah to halt its military operations to de-escalate the tension,” a senior commander in one of the Iranian-backed factions said.
A high-ranking Iranian security official said that the commander’s visit was “successful, though not entirely, as not all Iraqi groups consented to de-escalate.”
Despite the ceasefire against U.S. forces, Iranian-backed factions are still launching attacks against Israel from time to time, mainly using suicide drones.
Reuters’ report shows how Iran has been working to de-escalate tensions in the region which were caused by the Israeli war on Gaza. Despite Iran’s efforts, the U.S. continues to support the war, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 28,000 Palestinians.
