Attacks on Saudi oil expose Iraqi PM’s struggle to control armed factions

As black smoke billowed over Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline, the repercussions of the drone attack were already reaching across the border into Iraq.

The strikes, launched from Iraqi territory, threatened about 4 percent of global oil supplies and helped push Brent crude above $108 a barrel. But they also presented Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi with perhaps the clearest test yet of his pledge to bring armed groups under state control as the US-led coalition is due to make its final withdrawal by September 30.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks launched last Thursday. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of pro-Iranian factions including Kataib Hezbollah, has denied involvement, calling the strike “an honour that we do not claim”.

Baghdad has confirmed the drones came from Iraqi soil. Security forces identified launch traces near the Duwayrij River in Maysan province’s al-Tayeb border area on Saturday. Lieutenant General Saad Maan, head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell, said an intelligence task force had seized a launch platform.

A senior source at the Ministry of Interior told Al Jazeera he believed a resistance splinter group was responsible, though this has not been confirmed. If true, it points to a deeper problem: factions operating outside the state’s chain of command, and subgroups that operate outside the factions’ control.

Michael Knights, a research lead at Washington-based consultancy Horizon Engage, was sceptical, noting that front groups are an old ploy to make reluctant governments think twice before retaliating.

He said it was probably a cell run directly by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or one of the established armed factions. “They just want to make it marginally harder for anyone to pin it on them,” he said.

Under international pressure, Zaidi has responded quickly. He sacked the Maysan operations commander, ordered the formation of an investigative committee to look into the incident and closed numerous border crossings with Iran to prevent perpetrators from fleeing. In a visual display, heavily armed troops in Humvees appeared on Maysan’s streets.