In the days after an airstrike in Damascus led Iran to vow to “punish” Israel, many people in the region are wondering what may come next. While it’s possible Iran may seek to use ballistic missiles to target Israel, the way it targeted Al-Asad base in Iraq in 2020 after the US killed IRGC Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, people in the region fear other types of escalation.
Iran has often preferred to escalate attacks in other countries using proxies in the past years whenever there are tensions with Israel, the US, or other countries.
For instance, Iran prodded the Houthis in Yemen in the past to attack Saudi Arabia and also attack the UAE. Iran often prefers to get others to do its dirty work.
That’s not always the case, though. In addition to the 2020 attack on the Asad base, where US forces were present, Iran also directly attacked Saudi Arabia in the September 2019 attack on the Abqaiq energy facility. In that attack, Iran used drones and cruise missiles.
Iran’s capabilities in this respect are well known. It has a large number of long-range ballistic missiles. In January 2024, Iran carried out attacks on Pakistan and Syria using rockets.
Iran claimed it used a long-range missile attack on ISIS in northwest Syria. It used its Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles. The attack was a “message” for the US and Israel, according to Iranian media at the time.
Typical Iranian response: show off capabilities
This typical Iranian response is to show off capabilities or strike at others. Iran also bases its missiles and drones in other countries. For instance, in late 2020, Iran moved its Shahed 136 drones to Yemen, according to reports.
According to Newsweek, they were spotted in aerial photos in early 2021. The same drones were then exported to Russia for use against Ukraine. The drones have a range of around 2,000km.
They carry a warhead and fly a one-way kamikaze mission. Iran moved drone and missile technology to Yemen over the last decade. This enabled the Houthis to strike at Riyadh and, more recently, to attack ships in the Red Sea.
Also, Iran has moved drones and missiles to Iraq. Beginning around 2018, it is believed Iranian ballistic missiles were moved to Iraqi areas and secured by Iranian-backed militias.
Iran did this once ISIS was defeated in Anbar province. Then Iran helped build a base called Imam Ali near Albukamal in Syria on the Iraqi border. This enabled Iran to warehouse munitions and move weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran likely was at least in part behind the decision by Hezbollah in 2019 to try to post a unit using what was described in media as “killer drones” near the Golan. Iran also moved drones to the T-4 base in Syria, and in 2018, it targeted Israel with one of these drones.
In the 2021 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Iran prodded a militia in Iraq to target Israel with drones. The IDF used F35s to intercept two Iranian drones in March 2021.
While Iran has been moving drones and missiles to proxies in the region over the last decade, it has also increasingly targeted other groups when it wants to “respond” to Israel.
For instance, in mid-January, Rudaw media in Erbil noted that “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for a massive ballistic missile attack on the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil that killed at least four civilians, claiming to have hit “spy headquarters” of anti-Iran groups in the Region.”
The report noted that the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency said in “response to the recent terrorist crimes of the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the spy headquarters and gatherings of anti-Iran groups in parts of the Region were targeted by IRGC ballistic missiles in the middle of the night.”
Five ballistic missiles were fired at Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in Iraq.
At least four civilians were killed and 17 injured as the missiles struck, Rudaw said. Peshraw Dizayee, a Kurdish businessman, was among the dead.
In March 2022, Iran targeted another businessman in the Kurdish region. It attacked a mansion owned by Baz Karim Barzinji, CEO of the Iraqi Kurdish oil company KAR group. The IRGC said it fired 12 missiles at his house.
Iran’s tendency to lash out at Kurds is now leading to concerns in the region. The Kurdish region in northern Iraq is close to the US and hosts US forces. In addition, the US backs the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria, a group that includes Kurdish anti-ISIS fighters.
As such, Iran often targets these two Kurdish areas because it is easier to target them since they are closer to Iran and closer to Iran’s proxies in Syria and Iraq. Iran has a history of using proxies to attack others so that after the attack, Iran can claim it has no responsibility for the attack.
Today, as the region awaits Iran’s claims that it will “punish” Israel, many countries and groups are wondering if they will be on the receiving end of the Iranian response, whether directly or by proxy.
