Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian militia that is based in Iraq, put out a statement on January 25 threatening Israel. The statement is titled “the Secretary-General of Kataib Hezbollah addresses the Zionists of the land: The war on the Islamic Republic will leave nothing of you in our region.” Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq is similar to Hezbollah in Iran. Both are well-armed Iranian proxy groups.
The statement is the latest example of how Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are continuing to threaten Israel, the US, and the region. In recent days, these groups have deployed to the Syrian border, claiming to help Iraq secure the border against the Syrian government.
Kataib Hezbollah is one of the most extreme of the Iraqi militias and the one that is among the closest to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The US killed the leader of Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in 2020. Muhandis was travelling in the same vehicle at IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani when the US used a drone to strike the vehicle.
The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have attacked Israel in the past. After October 7 they carried out numerous drone attacks on Israel. Kataib Hezbollah also used a drone to attack US forces in Jordan in 2024, killing three Americans.
The new statement from Iraq is addressed to “the mujahideen brothers in the east and west.” It calls on supporters “to prepare for a comprehensive war in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the fortress of the nation and its glory, which has stood for more than four decades alongside the oppressed.”
This comes amid US-Iran tensions and as a US carrier group is entering US Central Command’s area of operations. Israel’s IDF has said it is prepared for any kind of scenario amid the tensions.
The new Kataib Hezbollah statement was signed by Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, who was re-elected as the group’s leader in 2022, according to a report at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is also known as Ahmad Mohsen Faraj al-Hamidawi.
It says, “today, the forces of falsehood, the Zionists of the earth and their oppressors, are gathering to try to subdue it [Iran], or rather to destroy it and demolish all the moral and ethical constants on the face of the earth.”
Any attack on Iran 'will not be a picnic'
The militia warns that any attack on Iran will “not be a picnic,” and it calls on all the forces of the “axis of resistance” to support Tehran. The axis refers to groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Palestinian groups that are backed by Iran.
The militia says that a conflict will lead to “terrible death and nothing will remain of you [Israel] in our region.” Kataib Hezbollah is hoping to prepare its supporters for a war. There are numerous pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. They are organized under what is called the Popular Mobilization Forces. The PMF is a paramilitary group of the Iraqi government, and the militias receive state salaries.
As such these groups are both part of the state and also carry out their own operations. The US has warned Iraq not to include the militias, many of which are sanctioned as terrorists by the US, in the next government being formed in Iraq.
The US has also warned Iraq about letting itself be controlled by Iran. Nouri al-Maliki, a pro-Iranian politician in Iraq is now angling to be the next prime minister in Baghdad.