Thousands of people gathered in Tehran to mourn top Iranian military officials killed by US-Israeli strikes that triggered a war on February 28. Iran has since launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.
Within hours of the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran, US assets in Iraq’s Kurdistan region came under retaliatory attacks from Tehran-backed groups, dragging the country into the conflict that has since expanded across the Middle East and beyond.
Since then, US assets located in Iraq have come under multiple attacks from pro-Iran groups and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC). The US has also carried out attacks against these Iraqi groups.
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During a news conference in the capital, Baghdad, on Monday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said, “Iraq has become one of the countries directly affected by the ongoing conflict.” The country, Hussein said, is facing attacks from “both sides of the conflict”.
Iran has also carried out near-daily attacks on US assets in the energy-rich Gulf countries, causing a spike in oil prices and threatening the global economy.
In this explainer, we unpack what is happening in Iraq and why.
On Wednesday, a suicide drone was intercepted near the US Consulate in Erbil, and loud explosions were heard in the area, multiple news wires reported, quoting unnamed security and diplomatic sources.
On the same day, a drone attack in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region killed a member of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group, the Komala Party. The party blamed Iran for the attack, which Iran has not commented on.
A drone struck a key US diplomatic facility in Iraq on Tuesday in suspected retaliation by pro-Tehran armed groups over the US-Israeli war on Iran, The Washington Post reported, quoting an unidentified security official and an internal US State Department alert.
The strike hit the diplomatic support centre, a logistical hub for US diplomats near Baghdad airport and Iraqi military bases, the Post reported. It was not clear from the report whether there were any injuries.
The report added that six drones were launched towards the compound in Baghdad, one of which hit the US facility while five were shot down. The security official, whom the Post said spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security situation, was not aware of any casualties.
The attack was likely carried out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, the Post reported, quoting the security official.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) said they hit a US base in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. “The headquarters of the invading US army in Al-Harir Air Base in the Kurdistan region was targeted with five missiles,” they said in a statement on their Telegram channel.
Earlier on the same day, the Iran-backed Kataib Imam Ali group, affiliated with the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), said four of its members were killed and 12 injured in air attacks in northern Iraq that it blamed on the US.
The group claimed its fighters were killed in “American aggression” against their position in the Dibis district of Kirkuk province.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Tuesday told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his country should not be used as a launchpad for attacks in the Middle East war, the Iraqi government said.
But Iraq, long a proxy battleground between the US and Iran, has been drawn into the conflict from the outset, with attacks attributed to the US, Iran-backed groups and the IRGC.
In the past 12 days, drone and rocket attacks have hit Baghdad International Airport, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, as well as oilfields and facilities. Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, has also come under multiple attacks.
Iran has also attacked Iranian Kurdish groups based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, after reports that Washington planned to arm them to fight Tehran. Last week, the leader of an Iranian Kurdish nationalist group based in the Kurdish region told Al Jazeera that it is “highly likely” that Iranian Kurds will stage a cross-border ground operation into Iran.
But Babasheikh Hosseini, the secretary-general of the Khabat Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan, said on Friday there was no operation “at this point”, but the US had made contact with the group and it was considering a campaign.
Overnight on March 4, local media reported that Iraqi forces shot down a drone that attempted to attack a US military facility, Victoria airbase, near Baghdad International Airport.
The US maintains a presence at Ain al-Asad Air Base in western Anbar province, supporting Iraqi security forces and contributing to the NATO mission, according to the White House. Iranian missile strikes targeted the base in 2020 in retaliation for the US killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Erbil Air Base in the Kurdistan region serves as a hub for US and coalition forces conducting training exercises and battle drills. The base supports US military efforts by providing a secure location for training, intelligence sharing, and logistical coordination in northern Iraq, according to the congressional report.
As of early 2026, about 2,500 US soldiers were in Iraq. However, since the US has withdrawn its troops from its bases in the Middle East, it is unclear how many of these soldiers remain in the country.
The US maintains a limited number of military facilities across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, far fewer than during the occupation years, but their exact number and size are not publicly disclosed.
These also include Victoria Base or Camp Victoria, which is located near Baghdad International Airport, and Harir Air Base, northeast of Erbil.
“Iraq’s predicament stems from the fragmentation of its state and its foreign policy,” Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow and director of the Iraq Initiative at UK-based think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.
“Different parts of the Iraqi political and security landscape are aligned with competing external powers: Some factions maintain close ties with Iran, while others are more closely connected to the US.”
Mansour explained that because of this fragmentation, there is no single, coherent foreign policy guiding the state.
“While Baghdad has previously protested violations of its sovereignty by both Washington and Tehran, its capacity to enforce those objections is limited.”
Mansour explained that this is because informal networks and militias in the country hold influence, playing a major role in decision-making and security.
Iran deepened its support for Shia Islamist parties and armed groups following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion in 2003.
Shia armed groups, which formed part of the PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi, played a leading role in the defeat of ISIL (ISIS) in Iraq between 2014 and 2017. The ISIL group, which counted on the support of the minority Sunni, emerged following years of chaos and sectarian politics.
Thousands of members of pro-Iran armed groups have been absorbed into the state security institutions. Groups such as Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al‑Haq, which are part of the PMF, are aligned with Tehran’s geopolitical interests.
Additionally, experts say that Iran sees Iraq as the place where it can hit US interests to make Washington pay a higher price for its policies.
“Pro-Iran armed groups under the banner of the ‘Islamic Resistance in Iraq’ have targeted US military assets through asymmetric attacks,” Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told Al Jazeera.
Ozcelik explained that for Tehran, this both pressures US interests and undermines Iraqi Kurdistan’s reputation for stability by targeting its energy facilities and other key sites.
“Kurdistan is a sensitive frontier for Iran in any case, given its proximity to Iran and the presence there of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups Tehran considers hostile.”
Ozcelik said that while other Middle Eastern countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, have also been pulled into the conflict, Iraq is different because Iranian influence runs far deeper there.
“Pro-Iran armed groups are not just present; they are entrenched and, in part, folded into the country’s security architecture, even as Iraq also hosts key US interests,” Ozcelik said.
Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged a return to the negotiating table before the Iran war “sets the entire region on fire.”
Iran may be using a Chinese satellite navigation system to target Israel and United States military assets in the Middle East, intelligence experts say.
Former French foreign intelligence director Alain Juillet told France’s independent Tocsin podcast this week that it is likely that Iran has been provided access to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system because its targeting has become much more accurate since the 12-Day War with Israel in June.
“One of the surprises in this war is that Iranian missiles are more accurate compared to the war that took place eight months ago, raising many questions about the guidance systems of these missiles,” Juillet, who served as the director of intelligence for the General Directorate for External Security from 2002 to 2003, told Tocsin.
In response to the US-Israeli attacks that began on February 28 and the killing of top Iranian figures, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel, and some have struck targets on the ground.
Although Israel has intercepted many of these incoming missiles, several have breached its defences, causing significant damage and casualties, including in hits on central Tel Aviv.
While the US can jam or deny access to the US government-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), which Iran’s military previously relied on, it cannot do much to interfere with China’s BeiDou system if that is what Iran is using. Iran has not confirmed or commented on this.
Here is what we know about BeiDou and whether Iran’s potential use of it could mark the end of the US monopoly on real-time satellite intelligence in the battlefield.
China launched its satellite navigation system, billed as rivalling GPS, in 2020. Chinese President Xi Jinping officially commissioned the system in a July 2020 ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
China began development of its own satellite navigation system after the 1996 Taiwan crisis because it feared Washington could restrict access to GPS in the future.
According to the Chinese government website for BeiDou, the aim of the system is to “serve the world and benefit mankind”.
Crucially, China’s system uses far more satellites than other navigational systems. According to data gathered by Al Jazeera’s AJ Labs data team, while the US GPS system has 24 satellites providing it with data, the Chinese system relies on 45. The two other main global navigation systems are Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo system, each of which have 24 satellites.
The BeiDou website said the system is comprised of three segments – a space segment, a ground segment and a “user” segment.
“The BDS ground segment consists of various ground stations, including master control stations, time synchronization/uplink stations, monitoring stations, as well as operation and management facilities of the inter-satellite link,” the website said.
“The BDS user segment consists of various kinds of BDS basic products, systems, and services as well as those compatible with other navigation systems, including basic products such as chips, modules and antennae, terminals, application systems and application services.”
Iran has not confirmed this. It is also unclear whether systematically switching military operations to a different satellite navigation system would even be possible in such a short space of time since the June war with Israel last year.
Following that conflict, Iran’s Information and Communications Technology ministry stated that Iran uses “all existing capacities in the world and does not rely on a single source of technology”.
However, Juillet told Tocsin that a switch to China’s BeiDou system is a realistic explanation for how Iran has improved its targeting accuracy so much since last year.
“There is talk about replacing the GPS system with a Chinese system, which explains the precision of Iranian missiles. … Significant targets have been hit.”
The BeiDou system could be used to guide Iran’s ballistic missiles with much greater accuracy than before. It is understood that the Chinese navigation system has a “margin of error” of less than 1 metre (3.3ft), which means it is highly precise. It can also automatically correct target directions if they move, analysts said.
Furthermore, it will likely help Iran to get around Western jamming systems used by Israel during the 12-Day War last year. They successfully deflected Iranian drones and missiles – which were using GPS signals to navigate – in 2025. Jamming techniques include tricking incoming drones with false coordinates. The BeiDou system can filter out such interference.
Military analyst Patricia Marins told the news outlet bne IntelliNews this week: “Unlike the civilian-grade GPS signals that were paralysed in 2025, BDS-3’s military-tier B3A signal is essentially unjammable.”
The system uses “complex frequency hopping and Navigation Message Authentication (NMA), which prevents ‘spoofing’”, she added.
BeiDou also has a short message communication tool that allows operators to communicate with drones or missiles as far away as 2,000km (1, 240 miles) while they are in flight. This means they can potentially be redirected after launch, Marins said.
While the exact size of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal is not known, it is widely considered one of the largest and most advanced in the region. Ballistic missiles can travel distances ranging from a few hundred kilometres to more than 10,000km (6,200 miles) across continents.
Juillet told the Tocsin podcast that while the Israeli and US air forces claimed to have destroyed all identifiable targets in Iran, the exact number and distribution of Iranian missiles is unknown.
“Iran is three times the size of France, and the missiles are mounted on trucks dispersed across the country. How can one track these trucks in such a vast area?”
He added that it is likely that Iran is deploying its missiles more “judiciously” than it did in the 12-Day War in anticipation that the current war may be prolonged.
In the meantime, there are concerns on the US side that its store of expensive interceptor missiles could be depleted by taking down cheap Iranian Shahed drones before Iran even has to use many of its ballistic missiles.
Returning to Russian fossil fuels would be a “strategic blunder” and would make Europe “more dependent, more vulnerable, and weaker” according to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Soldiers have been deployed on the streets of South Africa’s biggest city nearly a month after the president announced the army would work alongside the police to tackle high levels of crime.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his annual State of the Nation address on February 12 that organised crime was the “most immediate threat” to South Africa’s democracy and economic development.
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On Wednesday, troops touched down on the streets of Eldorado Park, a working class suburb in the country’s economic capital, Johannesburg, that has high levels of crime and gang violence.
Local media published pictures of armoured vehicles rolling into the area, and the Independent Online reported that local councillor Juwairiya Kaldine welcomed their arrival.
Soldiers were also seen in the Johannesburg suburb of Riverlea. Media reports said the soldiers were searching door-to-door.
South Africa’s national police service and the Department of Defence, which oversees the military, did not immediately provide details on the deployment. But the president said last month that the army will help the police service fight gang violence and illegal mining.
Ramaphosa said in a notice to the speaker of parliament that 550 soldiers would be involved in an initial deployment in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, to help combat crime and preserve law and order.
That deployment would last until the end of April, he said.
The government plans a wider deployment in five of its nine provinces, according to details submitted by police to parliament.
The deployment will focus on illegal mining in the Gauteng, North West and Free State provinces, and gang violence in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.
Parts of the national deployment could last more than a year, police officials said.
South Africa has high rates of violent crime. Police reported 6,351 homicides from October to December 2025, an average of nearly 70 a day in a country of about 63 million people.
However, not all residents of crime-affected communities are pleased about the plan to deploy the army.
In the Cape Flats, an impoverished area of the Western Cape with high levels of gang violence, where troops will also likely deploy, people told Al Jazeera last month that the military will not help fix the root causes of the violence or the social ills that make it easy to recruit people into gangs.
“It’s a very dangerous thing to bring the army because there’s an impatience with the fact that the police are not doing their job,” Irvin Kinnes, an associate professor with the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Criminology, told Al Jazeera at the time, calling the move “political”.