Hussein Zeido
North-Press Agency
In the wake of the killing of the Iranian commander of Quds Force, gen. Qasem Soleimani by a U.S. drone strike, Iran’s allied forces in the Middle East have threatened to retaliate against the U.S. forces and to expel them from all the geography of the region. According to the U.S. officials, the goal of the American target is to deter the future Iranian plans of attacks, according to the State Department’s statement, which pledged that, the United States will go on taking all procedures to protect its citizens and interests around the world.
Raise of the level of tensions
The first response to Soleimani’s killing was from Iran, which has said that it's preparing to attack 35 U.S. targets in the region except Tel Aviv. While statements came from allied leaders in the region, where the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for "the necessity of canceling the security agreement with the United States immediately, the closure of the U.S. embassy, the expulsion of the U.S. forces in a humiliating manner, and criminalizing the communication with the U.S. government and punishing that.”
Al-Sadr also called on all Iranian affiliated-groups in Iraq and outside Iraq to an immediate meeting "to announce the formation of the international resistance regiments,” he stated.
For his part, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah threatened the U.S. forces to pay the price for the assassination of the Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, saying: "We all must go to the just punishment along our region and our nation.”
The Iraqi parliament also approved the exit of the foreign forces from Iraq, where on Sunday, January, the Iraqi parliament approved a resolution calling on the government to end the presence of the foreign forces in Iraq, and to ensure they won't use its territories, airspace and maritime for any reason. “The government is obligated to cancel the request for the security assistance from the Global Coalition, which is fighting the Islamic State group (ISIS) because of the end of the military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory,” the decision stated.
The United States and in the words of its President Donald Trump responded that the U.S. would target 52 goals, if Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani. The U.S.-led Global Coalition to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria announced on Sunday, January 5, "stopping most of the fighting operations against the militants in the current time and focusing on protecting the coalition forces and bases amid increasing tensions with Iran.”
These ongoing preparations in full swing warn the possibility of a violent confrontation between the two sides, and the military confrontation may spread across the entire Middle East and its surroundings, so the U.S. has brought thousands of its troops into Kuwait for the sake of the confrontation, and announced maximum readiness in all its bases on the lands of Syria and Iraq. So if this happens, the borders of chaos will include Syria as well, and the fragments of confrontation would be incendiary throughout the region.
The repercussions of the confrontation on the Middle East
Major General Soleimani, the commander of Quds Force is described as the most prominent and important Iranian military commander among the leaders of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that he played a leading role in strengthening Iran's influence in the region.
Before the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the U.S. forces in Iraq had been subjected to "about 27 attacks since October 1st,” according to the statements of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, the last of which was the missile attack on an Iraqi military base hosting U.S. forces.
The attack resulted in the death of an American contractor and the injury of others, and the U.S. retaliated with air strikes targeting positions belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces PMF in Syria and Iraq, and then Washington took the initiative to kill Soleimani with the aim of weakening the Iranian forces and their allies, which could put Iraq and the region, especially the Persian Gulf in cross-border military actions between the United States and Iran, where the U.S. Secretary of Defense described it as "changing the rules of the game.”
Concerns are increasing throughout the region about the repercussions of Soleimani's killing. It is expected that following the incident, the U.S. and Iran will enter an advanced round of fighting and mutual reprisals in Iraq and all over the region.
It is expected that the battlefields will extend from Iraq into other geographies, and the combat operations will include all areas of influence of the Iranian forces in both Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, in Iraq and eastern Syria, in addition to southern Lebanon.
The repercussions of the confrontation in northern Syria
It is known the Syrian desert is the last refuge for ISIS militants, after losing vast areas in the north and east of Syria, due to the geographical nature of that region, where the desert is an appropriate environment for ISIS militants to hide. The Syrian desert is located on the southern borders of the Eastern Euphrates' region, the place of control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the U.S.-led Global Coalition forces.
Given the appropriate opportunity, ISIS will benefit from the geography of the region, in addition to relying on the sleeper cells of the local population to provide them with hideouts, roads, armed men and logistical materials.
ISIS will take advantage of the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, especially if there is a large-scale military confrontation between the two sides, and it will try to carry out its military attacks and will move from its method called "individual wolves" or "sleeper cells" into the direct war again. The new tensions between the U.S. on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other hand will accelerate the formation of ISIS necessary forces to attack the SDF in northeastern Syria, especially since the Global Coalition has stopped the military operations against ISIS.
The British Royal Institute of International Affairs had published a report in which it spoke about these risks and indicated that ISIS return is a possibility, even if it wasn't as strong as it was before.
In the wake of any military confrontation in the region, ISIS will rise again and will try to secure new supply lines for funding and armament, it will benefit from the Turkish interference in northern Syria, and there may be a new attack by the Turkish military if the war and chaos prevail in the region, allowing ISIS to move in more security void. In the case of achieving these possibilities, an appropriate environment would be constituted for sliding the region into complete chaos, it may lead to the escape of nearly 10,000 ISIS militants from detention centers in northeastern Syria, and the escape of about 70,000 of their family members from the camps of northeastern Syria.