Reuters reported on Friday that according to three Iranian officials, two Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq over the last few months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making their own.
Iran has long financed several Shiite armed militias in Iraq, including Qais al-Khazali's Asaib Ahl al-Haq, which is close to Kataib Hezbollah. Khazali's forces fought with the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary during the ISIS conflict.
Tehran also came to the Kurdistan Region's aid with light weapons at the start of the ISIS conflict. Sources told Reuters there was a missile factory being developed in the Kurdistan Region, as well as in al-Zafaraniya (near Baghdad), and Jurf al-Sakhar (near Karbala). The interior ministries in Baghdad and Erbil were not available for comment on Friday.
Western policy makers have expressed concern over a "Shiite crescent," stretching from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to the Golan Heights. Since the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal in May, European and other cosigners have worked to keep the deal in place.
Proxy conflicts in Yemen and Syria have brought the US and Iranian militaries ever closer.
“The logic was to have a backup plan if Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official told Reuters. “The number of missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if necessary.”
Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani is responsible for the program, three sources told Reuters.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi dismissed the country's National Security Advisor Falih Alfayyadh on Thursday for "partisanship." Alfayyadh was the head of the Hashd al-Shaabi commission.
On Friday, a small splinter group of Abadi list, calling themselves the main Nasr leadership, announced they were nominating Alfayyadh to the post of prime minister.
Britain's Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt is in Tehran for talks on Syria, Yemen, and the nuclear deal on Friday.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Thursday that Iran "cannot avoid" talks on tough issues like its ballistic missile program and regional influence.
"But Iran cannot avoid discussions, negotiations on three other major subjects that worry us — the future of Iran's nuclear commitments after 2025, the ballistic question and the fact there is a sort of ballistic proliferation on the part of Iran... and the role Iran plays to stabilize the whole region," he said, according to AFP
Washington is open to negotiations with Iran, but says it will not renegotiate the nuclear deal.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told Pentagon reporters on Tuesday that Iran has "less willingness to be confrontational" but "continue to be the single biggest destabilizing element in the Middle East."
"Iran has been put on notice that the continued mischief they've caused around the area, the murder that they have caused, the support from Syria, and what they're doing with Assad... that this is not tolerated by us, and they're going to be held to account for it," he added.
Iran maintains its missile program is for defensive purposes.
“We have bases like that in many places and Iraq is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a veteran IRGC commander, Reuters has reported.
