BAGHDAD (AP) – Drones loaded with explosives that targeted Saudi Arabia’s royal palace in the kingdom’s capital last month were launched from inside Iraq, said a senior Iranian-backed militia official in Baghdad and a U.S. official.
Speaking to the Associated Press this week, the militia official said that three drones were launched from areas on the Saudi-Iraqi border by a relatively unknown Iran-backed faction in Iraq and collided with the royal complex in Riyadh on January 23, exacerbating the regional tensions.
Attacks on the Saudi capital have been sporadic amid the kingdom’s years-long war against neighboring Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Earlier this month, the rebels targeted an airport in southwest Saudi Arabia with bomb-loaded drones, causing a civilian plane to catch fire on the runway.
The Houthi rebels aligned with Iran, however, denied carrying out an attack that targeted the Yamama Palace of Saudi Arabia on 23 January.
The comments by the senior Iraqi militia official mark the first time that an Iran-backed group has recognized that Iraq was the source of the attack and point to the challenge Baghdad faces in containing the attacks by Iran-backed militia factions in Iraq.
This came after a claim of responsibility allegedly issued by a little-known group called Awliya Wa’ad al-Haq, or “The True Promise Brigades”, which circulated on social media, calling it retaliation for a suicide bombing claimed by the group. Islamic State in an important commercial district of Baghdad on January 21.
The militia official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the attack, said the drones came “in parts of Iran and were assembled in Iraq, and were launched from Iraq”. He did not reveal where along the border the drones were launched and did not provide further details about the group that claimed the attack.
Iranian-backed groups have significantly fragmented since the Washington-led attack that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad more than a year ago. Both were instrumental in commanding and controlling a wide range of Iranian-backed groups operating in Iraq.
Since their deaths, militias have become increasingly undisciplined and disparate. Some Washington-based analysts argue that militias have fragmented only to allow them to claim attacks under different names to mask their involvement.
A US official said Washington believed the January 23 attack on Yamama Palace was launched from inside Iraq. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, gave no details or said how the United States came to that conclusion.
An Iraqi official speaking on condition of anonymity under the regulations, said that US intelligence was shared with the Iraqi government.
Launching an attack from Iraq would pose a challenge to Saudi air defense, now focused on threats from Iran to the northeast and Yemen to the south. These drones are also small enough and fly low enough not to be detected on the radar.
The attack comes as Iraq seeks to deepen economic ties with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in a variety of investment projects. Last week, President Barham Salih visited the United Arab Emirates and Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein visited Saudi Arabia this week, apparently to discuss the attack.
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Associated Press writers Robert Burns in Washington and Samya Kullab in Baghdad contributed to this report.