Within two days of a missile from Yemen's Ansarullah movement, better known as the Houthis, killing at least 12 people at Riyadh's main airport on Oct. 10, two verdicts on the attack appeared in Iraq. The government in Baghdad condemned it on Oct. 11. Kata'ib Hezbollah, whose fighters form part of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), praised the strike on Oct. 12 and dismissed official condemnation as "discordant voices" that did not speak for Iraqis. The armed group further urged the Houthis to keep up their attacks.
On Oct. 14, Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi sat with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh and assured him that Iraqi territory would not be used to attack the Kingdom. Yet the assurance sits uneasily with the fact that his government does not control all the weapons in Iraq. Kata'ib Hezbollah, which had just applauded the airport attack, is among the armed factions that have refused to hand theirs to the state.
That gap may define the country's exposure. If the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran's regional allies widens, Iraq could well become its main theater, and the fight could pit Iraqis against one another more than the country against its neighbors.
Why Iraq, not Iran
A senior politician in the ruling Shiite Coordination Framework, an alliance of mostly Iran-aligned Shiite parties, told Amwaj.media that how the bloc would respond to Saudi strikes inside Iraq may depend on whether Riyadh acts in retaliation for an attack or pre-emptively. Since Israel and the US began striking the Islamic Republic on Feb. 28, Tehran has lashed out at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states, with drones and missiles targeting sites including Aramco's Ras Tanura refinery.
Saudi Arabia has not openly struck back at Iran. Reuters reported in May that the Kingdom carried out covert airstrikes inside Iran at the end of March in response to those attacks. Riyadh has not confirmed the strikes.
In Iraq, by contrast, Saudi Arabia has struck in the open. On July 29, joint Saudi-US strikes hit PMU positions in seven governorates, killing at least 20 fighters. Riyadh and Washington called the bombing retaliation for alleged drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Baghdad condemned the raids as a violation of sovereignty, and Zaidi canceled a planned visit. For the Kingdom, hitting Iran-allied factions in Iraq appears to carry a fraction of the escalation risk of striking the Islamic Republic itself.
On Sept. 11, Riyadh said drones launched from Iraq had hit its East-West pipeline, its export route around the Strait of Hormuz. Zaidi's government traced the attacks to Maysan Governorate, which borders Iran, and removed the provincial operations commander from his post. The Kingdom, while reserving the right to act, agreed to hold off on a response after the premier asked for an opportunity to prevent further attacks.
It was not the first time the pipeline had reportedly been hit from Iraqi soil. Yemen's Houthis claimed attacks on it in May 2019, but US officials concluded that the drones had originated in southern Iraq, with intelligence pointing to Iran-backed armed groups.
Attacks launched from Iraq can be claimed by others or denied outright, which may help explain the country's appeal to Iran's allies. The events of July and September suggest that this cover has worn thin, since Riyadh answered alleged attacks in July by striking PMU positions and in September said plainly that the drones had come from Iraq.
An assurance in person
Zaidi's answer to that exposure was to take his word to Riyadh himself. The Oct. 14 meeting was his first visit to Saudi Arabia since taking office in May. According to the Iraqi readout, the premier told the crown prince that Iraq would not allow its territory to serve as a launchpad for attacks on the Kingdom.
Neither the Iraqi nor the Saudi readout names a faction, a monitoring mechanism or a consequence for violations. Zaidi's case appears to have rested instead on his own indispensability. A senior diplomat at the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Amwaj.media that the premier presented Iraq as a constructive state and disarmament as a process under way.
Saudi Arabia, the diplomat said, was told it had no alternative to working with the Iraqi government, since no other actor can contain the armed factions. With Washington behind Zaidi, the diplomat added, Riyadh opted for compromise and signaled its readiness to cooperate.
The enforcement gap
Zaidi's assurance rests on a disarmament process that has already slipped. His original Sept. 30 deadline for the factions to disarm, the date of the US-led Coalition's scheduled departure, gave way on Sept. 21 to a June 2027 target. The new plan opens with a 90-day phase in which factions refrain from attacks and US forces in the region hold off striking them. Saudi Arabia is not a party to that bargain.
The Coordination Framework backed the new timetable on Oct. 2, and Zaidi said on Oct. 5 that three unnamed factions had handed over their weapons and two more had agreed to do so. By contrast, Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba and Kata'ib Hezbollah maintained in late September that they would not disarm until foreign troops leave.
Yet after the Coalition's mission ended on Sept. 30, by the government's account, Kata'ib Hezbollah declared on Oct. 1 that its weapons "will remain as a trust in the hands of our mujahideen." The exit appears to have removed the factions' stated reason for keeping their arms without producing compliance.
As Amwaj.media has reported, the Aug. 5 session of the State Administration Coalition, the governing alliance of Iraq's main Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni parties, turned on who controls disarmament, not whether it should happen.
That debate surfaced again in mid-August, when Mohammed Naji, head of the political office of the Badr Organization, a leading Coordination Framework party, wrote in a post on Twitter/X that any imposition of force on "our brothers in the resistance" would be a "grave overstep" opening "the door to internal strife."
What such statements show is that Zaidi, who depends on the Coordination Framework for his mandate, cannot easily enforce his assurance to Riyadh against factions that sit inside the same political order.
In Riyadh, the premier appears to have turned that weakness into leverage. At the Aug. 5 session, he had reportedly threatened to resign. Similar earlier reports had been rejected on July 31 by a senior government source. Zaidi's case to the crown prince seems to have followed the same logic, that his value lies in the absence of an alternative. But the factions whose restraint he is offering are the same ones his government has not disarmed.
A clash between Iraqis
The test of Zaidi's assurance is the next attack launched from Iraqi soil, and it may already have arrived. On Oct. 22, Saudi security sources told Alhurra TV that drones launched from Iraq had been intercepted over the previous 20 days, a period that includes the Riyadh meeting. The sources did not say how many came after it. Saudi restraint in September was granted at the premier's request. A further strike on the Kingdom could suggest that Zaidi has spent the credit he asked for.
Renewed Saudi strikes would likely deepen a fault line inside Iraq, between the government and the factions. Established in 2014 to combat the Islamic State group (IS), the PMU was formally integrated into Iraq's armed forces in 2016. Each Saudi strike on its positions would oblige Baghdad to defend an institution that harbors the very factions Zaidi's assurance covers. Each act of coordination with Riyadh, in turn, could hand Kata'ib Hezbollah the argument that the government has taken a side against the "resistance."
Whether that fault line breaks open may depend on timing. The Coordination Framework politician explained that a pre-emptive Saudi strike would provoke a major dispute, noting that the factions have significant reach toward northern Saudi Arabia. The Shiite alliance, the politician added, is working to contain the armed groups and would in that case stand against Riyadh. The alliance would not endorse the factions' unlawful actions, the source stressed, but a Saudi attack would undermine those efforts and complicate disarmament.
The distinction suggests the Coordination Framework may separate retaliation from pre-emption, which, by the politician's account, it would treat as a breach.
Zaidi's Oct. 14 visit appears to have bought time and reopened top-level contact that had stalled since July. A Gulf-Iran confrontation in Iraq would still run through the PMU, an institution that is at once state and faction, and a government that condemns attacks its own brigades celebrate. The question for Riyadh may be less what Baghdad promised than whether the Iraqi state is the party able to keep it.