There is concern among Iraqi government and political circles that factions loyal to Iran will spiral “out of control” in the event of a renewed confrontation with the United States, amid conflicting news. The government denied it, regarding targeting a security headquarters in the east of the country.
An official source in the ruling “Coordination Framework” coalition said that the government seeks to avoid the dangers of war, through “direct negotiations with the armed factions to persuade them to remain neutral,” noting that “this negotiation is taking place through contacts from influential figures.”
In conjunction; According to the source, the Iraqi government is deploying “security forces in the outskirts and areas far from city centers, similar to what happened in Basra Governorate recently.” To prevent attacks that may be launched by armed factions on neighboring countries if war breaks out.
However, the source reported; He who is familiar with internal discussions regarding the regional escalation said that “the government’s control of the situation in the event of the outbreak of war is in doubt, both regarding curbing the armed factions allied with Iran, and regarding the repercussions of the war on the continued flow of Iraqi oil exports, which have recently begun to recover and have exceeded the ceiling of 3 million barrels per day.”
Before the escalation of regional tension, the government was trying to resolve the issue of the factions’ weapons, but doubts have recently increased regarding the faltering government plan to confine them, after it was postponed from last September 30 to June 30, 2027.
The “coordinating framework” was negotiating with the factions through a “political committee” that included political leaders. It was widely rumored that the Prime Minister began contacts with these armed groups independently of the “Committee” due to increasing fears of renewed war.
A political source told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the armed factions loyal to Iran may have updated their local and regional goals as the possibilities of war escalate.”
But the representative of the “Rights” movement; The political wing of the Hezbollah Brigades, Saud Al-Saadi, denied Al-Zaidi’s personal interference in the negotiation file with the factions.
He said in press statements that the “coordination framework” reached “understandings and agreed with the factions regarding the reorganization of weapons.”
Al-Saadi added, “The plan included forming a joint committee that included representatives of the factions, the government, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the coordination framework, but Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has not signed the agreement yet,” hinting that he was under American pressure.
“State sponsor of terrorism”
Meanwhile, political sources said that the Chargé d'Affaires of the US Embassy in Iraq, Stephen Fagin, had delivered direct messages over the past few days to government and political figures, in which he confirmed that Washington was monitoring steps to limit weapons to the state, according to the local Shafaq News agency.
According to the sources, the American official “warned that failure to adhere to pledges, and failure to develop a concrete plan to end the presence of weapons outside the control of the state by next June 30, will push Washington to consider Iraq a (state sponsor of terrorism) and take various sanctions and measures against it,” as the sources put it.
Similar to the government silence regarding the possibility of renewed war, the armed factions are practicing a similar silence these days, but the “Loyal Ansar Allah” movement, an ally of former Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani, last Friday warned the United States against using Iraqi airspace or territory to carry out any military attacks against Iran, but stressed that it would remain neutral in the event of a war.
The movement’s spokesman, Ali Al-Fatlawi, said in press statements, “The movement will remain neutral as long as Iraq is not used as a launching pad for attacking any neighboring country, and Washington is required to commit to not violating Iraqi airspace.”
He added, "Any violation of Iraqi sovereignty will be met with a position from the movement, and the nature of the response will be determined by the leadership according to the requirements of the stage."
Regarding the weapons file, Al-Fatlawi confirmed that “the movement did not hand over its weapons, and that the agreement includes organizing and restricting weapons during the period extending from September 2026 until June 2027, and not withdrawing or handing them over.”
Ambiguity still surrounds the factions' final position on the war, but some factions linked to Tehran are currently adhering to a state of cautious calm. To avoid involving Iraq in a devastating conflict or exposing the country to harsh economic sanctions and direct strikes.
However, the possibility of the factions maintaining the current state of calm is not guaranteed if the situation explodes, according to observers, and there is a fear that the factions loyal to Iran may be exposed to Israeli and American air strikes. Which will make its involvement in the war justified.
Over the past few days, factions and media platforms close to them reported monitoring dozens of intrusions by American military and reconnaissance aircraft, and this coincided with Western reports that spoke of Israeli and American fighter jets conducting military exercises in the skies of Iraq and several countries in the region simulating directing strikes against Iran.
On the field; Press reports reported, on Tuesday, that a site belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces in Diyala (east) was subjected to an air strike, but the official of the Security Media Cell; Lieutenant General Saad Maana denied this, and said in a brief statement: “There is no truth to the existence of any targeting or aerial bombardment in the governorate.”
The humanitarian and security conditions in the Gaza Strip are deteriorating as a result of the Israeli restrictions imposed on the crossings and the movement of people, goods and commodities, coinciding with the continuation of field attacks by armed gangs supported by the Israeli army.
Surprisingly, on Tuesday morning, Israel informed the coordination bodies on the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of its intention to prevent the entry of goods, commodities, and humanitarian aid arriving from the Rafah land crossing (between Egypt and Gaza) into the Gaza Strip, claiming that smuggling of prohibited materials continues, mainly referring to cigarettes and tobacco products, and some materials that Israel decided to prevent from being brought into the Strip.
After more than 20 patients and 35 companions left to travel through the Rafah land crossing to receive treatment, Israel suddenly returned them and prevented them from traveling under the pretext of security conditions, but after hours of the ban, the patients were informed again that they were allowed to travel.
This comes at a time when Israel is still controlling the movement of goods and aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing, as it is still below the level it reached before the recent crisis that caused the flow of goods for an entire week into the Strip, before the process of entering them resumed on a limited basis about a week and a half ago.
The Israeli ban caused “a severe shortage of basic items, coinciding with a record and large rise in prices, and an almost complete collapse in the purchasing power of citizens,” according to what the Gaza Chamber of Commerce reported.
Maher Al-Tabbaa, Director General of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce, said in a press briefing that approximately 200 goods were allowed to be brought in with the tightening of the strict Israeli restrictions, indicating that the intransigence was reflected in the movement of prices, which jumped at large rates reaching between 500 and 600 percent, while goods prohibited by Israel recorded increases between two thousand and three thousand percent.
Field deterioration
The security situation did not differ from the humanitarian deterioration; Military operations continued through Israeli raids, or using armed gangs stationed in areas occupied by the Israeli army.
Since the announcement of the ceasefire agreement, according to a plan presented by US President Donald Trump, a virtual line called the “yellow line” separates the areas occupied by Israel (east of the line) in Gaza, estimated at more than 60 percent of the area of the Strip, while Hamas and the Palestinian factions control the areas west of the line.
In a move described as similar to the operations of the Israeli army, members of armed gangs, after midnight on Sunday and Monday, infiltrated a camp for the displaced in the Abu Hamid roundabout area between the center and east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, under the cover of Israeli drones that were flying over the area.
Members of those gangs had infiltrated on foot before reinforcements arrived in four-wheel drive vehicles, to complete the process of controlling the camp and completely besieging it, before they demanded a number of people via loudspeakers to surrender themselves, but it turned out that none of them were in the camp at the time, as a field source explained to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Three sources and eyewitnesses from the vicinity of the camp confirmed that members of the armed gang searched the tents and were shooting and terrorizing the residents, especially children and women, before they kidnapped and took more than 35 people, all of them from the “Barbakh” family, including boys, to their areas of control east of Khan Yunis, amid the flight of Israeli drones.
According to sources and testimonies, more than 10 hours after their kidnapping, the armed gangs released all the kidnapped people, except for 4 young men whom they kept for investigation. A field source quoted some of those released as saying that those who “interrogated them were Israeli officers, not the gang members who handed them over to the Israeli forces deployed in the region.”
A factional source in Khan Yunis estimated that “the operation aims to create chaos and muscle strength by the gangs supported by the Israeli army with air cover to carry out specific security tasks and spread chaos.”
Another source does not rule out that this is a prelude to the advance of the Israeli forces and the expansion of their control and incursion into those areas, with the aim of widening the yellow line, which is a few hundred meters away from the location of the camp where the event occurred, as was done previously several times in different areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army continued the escalation, killing a Palestinian, on Tuesday afternoon, in a raid targeting officers and members of the Hamas government’s internal security service inside the Applied College in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Interior in the Strip.
Meanwhile, the death of another Palestinian was announced this morning following an attack that targeted a group of Gazans yesterday in Mawasi Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, 7 Palestinians were killed in a series of separate raids, including one in a raid that targeted a vehicle in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, two others in two separate raids in Khan Yunis, and a fourth after he was targeted by a bomb from a drone in the village of al-Masdar, east of the center of the Strip.
Among the victims was the administrative employee at the Ministry of Education in Gaza, Mahmoud Qafah, a resident of the city of Rafah, who was on his way to work when he was targeted in Mawasi Khan Yunis, making him the second education worker in the Strip to be killed within 3 days.
Israeli confusion
In this context, the Israeli army announced that in recent days, it killed 4 Hamas field activists, in a series of operations it carried out in the Gaza Strip. Factional sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that two of those named in the Israeli statement are field commanders in the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the movement, and they were injured in attacks that targeted them but were not killed.
Many times during the war, the Israeli army announced the assassination of leaders and activists in Hamas and its armed wing, but it later became clear that they were wounded and survived, and others survived on their own.
In the context of monitoring Israeli violations, the government media office in Gaza monitored 5,989 violations of the ceasefire agreement since it entered into force in October 2025, including 753 violations during the past month.
The violations resulted in the death of 1,599 Palestinians, the injury of about 6,000 others, and the arrest of 217. Statistics showed that the violations last October amounted to a daily average of 24.3 violations, including 346 shooting incidents, 310 bombing operations, 64 house bombings, 21 incursions by military vehicles, and 12 arrests of citizens.
These violations led to the killing of 145 Palestinians, including 21 children, 14 women, 2 elderly people, and 108 men, while 672 were injured, including 182 children, 129 women, and 30 elderly people, and 19 others were arrested.
Syrian General Intelligence revealed on Tuesday that a cell affiliated with the Lebanese Hezbollah was behind the recently thwarted sabotage plan that targeted the Homs oil refinery in the center of the country.
The Internal Security Forces confirmed, through their official social media channels, the arrest of cell members and the seizure of explosive devices and equipment prepared to carry out the attack.
This announcement came two days after an initial statement by the intelligence service in which it confirmed the foiling of the plan without going into details. The security services published pictures of the two detainees, M.S. and B.S., as members of the party’s cell, noting that the arrest came as a result of a proactive security operation and careful follow-up to protect vital installations and the country’s economic capabilities.
Stuck files
This revelation came hours after a high-level Lebanese delegation visited Damascus, headed by Tareq Mitri, Deputy Prime Minister, and held expanded sessions with the aim of discussing the outstanding issues between the two countries.
The visit witnessed a notable absence of the Lebanese Minister of Interior, Ahmed Al-Hajjar, who postponed his visit for reasons he described as “private and emergency,” so that a technical delegation would act on his behalf in the talks related to the security file.
According to informed sources, the priority of the Syrian side in the Syrian-Lebanese talks was the issues of border control, combating smuggling, the movement of border crossings, and joint security cooperation and coordination.
The Homs Refinery, which was established in 1959, is the mainstay of the Syrian economy. Due to its essential role in securing oil derivatives for the local market.
It was noteworthy that the Syrian Ministry of Energy warned of the ongoing attacks targeting the energy sector, one day before the General Intelligence announced that it had foiled a targeting of the Homs refinery, stressing the importance of protecting oil and gas pipelines.
22 assaults
The ministry's figures show that the country's oil pipelines have been subjected to 22 attacks, including acts of sabotage and theft, since the beginning of this year.
Local sources in Homs attributed the selection of the refinery for targeting to its geographical location close to the Lebanese border, an area that previously formed a stronghold for Hezbollah, where the remnants of the militias and their collaborators still have geographical experience in the region that provides them with a relatively safe environment to move.
Political analysts linked the targeting attempt to regional geopolitical dimensions. In this context, researcher Abbas Sharifa pointed out in previous statements to Asharq Al-Awsat that “regional parties, led by Iran’s arms, are disturbed by Syria’s proposal as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, especially after the Iraqi Prime Minister’s visit to Damascus and the agreement to increase the volume of exports through Syrian territory, to reach two million barrels per day through the port of Baniyas.”
Economic war
For his part, security expert Diaa Qaddour explained that the oil infrastructure has become part of an economic war, stressing that “there is an Iranian interest in undermining Damascus’s efforts to transform into an alternative energy corridor, as Tehran fears any projects that reduce Iraq and Syria’s dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. “This may limit its influence in controlling regional energy pathways.”
It is noteworthy that the Syrian Ministry of Energy announced last month the completion of the rehabilitation and maintenance of the “Atmospheric Distillation Unit 10” in the Homs refinery with a design capacity of one million tons of crude oil annually, a step aimed at enhancing the production of diesel, fuel and kerosene and securing the needs of the local market.
