Major Gulf fighting resumes as US and Saudi strike Iran’s allies in Iraq

By R Anil Kumar

Bengaluru, July 29, 2026. The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly struck Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq on July 29, as the first US airstrikes in the Middle East since President Donald Trump suspended the US bombing campaign against Iran last week.

Iran, for its part, rejected an Omani proposal to jointly manage the Strait of Hormuz and said it had fired on ships in the strait and at US bases in Jordan.

The renewed combat and diplomatic setbacks pushed oil prices up for the first time since last week, signalling no quick end to the war the United States and Israel started in February.

Iraqi men shouted Shi’ite sectarian slogans and “Death to America!” as they carried the bodies of slain fighters in body bags out of a hospital in Mosul in northern Iraq, footage from Iraq’s Al-Ahad television showed.

Washington and Riyadh said they had jointly struck the Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the formal Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in US-Saudi strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.

It was the first major US military action in the Middle East since last Friday, when Trump abruptly suspended an intensive bombing campaign after 13 days, having been advised by commanders that the strategy had run its course.

It was also the first time during the war that Saudi Arabia had publicly declared its participation in joint strikes alongside the United States. The joint strikes potentially widen the conflict by drawing Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia into combat against Shi’ite proxies of Iran on a new front.

Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, one of the few in the world to maintain close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, called an emergency meeting.

Washington has long called on the Baghdad government to crack down on Iran-backed paramilitaries, but efforts to do so in the past have provoked domestic unrest.

The deep ties between Iran and Iraq, the two biggest Shi’ite-majority countries, have been on display this week as hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims visit shrines in Iraq for an annual holiday, crossing the border over land. Some carried portraits of Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revered as a high-ranking cleric in both countries.

Saudi Arabia has also been drawn into the conflict on another front, with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen announcing a blockade of Saudi oil exports in the Red Sea last week and firing on ships and oil facilities.

Hours before launching the joint attacks with Saudi Arabia on Iraq, the US military said its air defences had averted a surprise Iranian attack on US troops in the region.

Jordan’s military said its air defences had intercepted and shot down five Iranian missiles. Three of the four US service members killed this month were killed in Jordan, where US bases have become primary Iranian targets.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had fired several ballistic missiles at US military installations in Jordan, and had struck three tankers that were attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorised route.

TEHRAN REJECTS OMANI PROPOSAL

Fighting had first resumed this month after a US-Iran deal reached in June on a framework to end the war collapsed over the fate of the strait, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran says it controls and where it aims to collect fees.

Oman proposed a plan for joint regional control of the strait this week, with the backing of Gulf states, that would allow the payment of voluntary service charges. But a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Iran had rejected the Omani proposal as “unreasonable”.

The official said a 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran’s interests, though Tehran considers Oman a valuable neighbour. Iran wants sole control over the inbound route and partial control over the outbound route.

The United States has been telling ships to use a route near the Omani shore rather than sailing close to Iran. The Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement it continued to maintain full control over the strait and would respond to “unlawful US military interference”.

The renewed fighting sent oil prices rising 4.6%, with Brent crude futures trading at almost $88 a barrel at 1030 GMT.

Explainer: Who are Iraq’s Iranian-backed armed groups?

The US and Saudi Arabia have struck Iran-backed Shi’ite armed groups in Iraq, which the allies said were responsible for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities.

The attacks have put the spotlight on the militias that wield enormous political and military power in Iraq.

HOW DID THE MILITIAS BECOME INFLUENTIAL IN IRAQ?

The Shi’ite groups sprang up as Tehran steadily entrenched itself in Iraqi politics and security matters after the US-led invasion of Iraq toppled President Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The militias, with Iranian financial and military support, have become formidable forces that can rival the national army in firepower. They are also deeply enmeshed in Iraq’s political, economic and social fabric, building business networks and taking seats in parliament and the government.

They are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of about 10 hardline Shi’ite armed factions that collectively command about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, according to two security officials who monitor the militias’ activities.

The Resistance group, a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, has said it carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war began in 2023.

The Trump administration has pressured Iraqi leaders to rein in these armed groups.

WHO ARE THE MOST POWERFUL GROUPS?

Kataib Hezbollah is the most powerful faction in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

One of the armed groups closest to Iran, it was founded by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the mid-2000s. A US air strike on Baghdad in 2020 killed Muhandis along with high-profile Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

After its founding, the group quickly developed a reputation for deadly attacks against military and diplomatic targets. It was accused of using a mixture of sniper, rocket and mortar attacks and roadside bombs.

Kataib Hezbollah has as many as 10,000 members, according to US National Intelligence, and an arsenal of drones, rockets and short-range ballistic missiles, Iraqi officials and members of the group have said. The US has struck Kataib Hezbollah positions, bases and training and logistics hubs several times over the years. The group has defied and challenged government statements calling for an end to attacks on US forces.

It fought alongside other Shi’ite militias against mostly Sunni rebels during Syria’s civil war.

The group has said it carried out high-profile kidnappings. The militia abducted Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli Russian doctoral student, during her research trip to Iraq in 2023, according to Iraqi officials.

Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous), is headed by Qais Al-Khazali. Born in 1974, in the impoverished Sadr City area of Baghdad, Khazali has sought to soften his image in a quest to become one of Iraq’s top politicians.

Khazali rose to prominence in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion. In 2007, he was arrested by American forces for his alleged role in an attack on a government compound in Karbala in the Shi’ite heartland of southern Iraq in which five US soldiers were killed.

He was freed after about three years in an American prison in Iraq.

Khazali fought with fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army against US troops but formed his own armed group in 2006. He was among many militia fighters who went to northern Iraq to battle Islamic State after it seized large swathes of the country and imposed a reign of terror in 2014.

In 2020, Khazali said there was no longer a justification for thousands of US troops to remain in Iraq since Islamic State had been defeated and that they would be an occupying force if they did not leave.

Though a militia commander, Khazali sat out militia attacks on US military facilities during the Gaza war and was involved with Iraq’s education ministry.

He has denied his militia was involved in the deaths of thousands of people during Iraq’s civil war from 2006 to 2007.

(With Inputs from Agencies)