Five hurt in Baghdad blast linked to air defense caches

Five people were injured when an explosion tore through a stockpile of obsolete ammunition at a Popular Mobilization Forces headquarters in Baghdad’s East Canal area on October 17. The blast occurred at a base controlled by an umbrella body that includes many Iranian-backed militias. Iraqi authorities initially described the incident as an accident and pledged an investigation, but the situation has grown more complex as new details emerge.

Sources cited by the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday said Iraqi officials now believe Israel was responsible for recent strikes on two specific locations. These sites held shoulder-fired air defense systems of Chinese origin. The weapons were reportedly supplied by Tehran to the militias. The report did not identify the specific Chinese system involved, nor did it provide physical evidence for its claims. One source noted that the armed group which selected the storage spot considered it very difficult to reach or detect. The suspected attacks took place last week, shortly after the shipments arrived.

The timeline of these incidents stretches back to early October. On October 1, warehouses linked to Iran-backed groups in and around Baghdad were affected by strikes. These sites reportedly stored drones intended for suicide attacks and reconnaissance missions. A security official stated that while Iraqi authorities had not fully determined the nature of the strikes, they had gathered enough evidence to attribute them to Israel. This mid-October blast followed those earlier events, suggesting a sustained campaign against militia infrastructure.

The connection to China adds a new dimension to the conflict. The newspaper linked earlier reports of China supplying weapons to Iran with the movement of the same systems into Iraq, though it described that connection as unconfirmed. China’s Foreign Ministry denied those reports on July 28. The strikes appear to signal a new phase in the regional conflict, a view supported by a source in the Shi’ite Coordination Framework. That source said ruling party leaders had spent weeks predicting that a renewed war between Washington and Tehran would begin with the total destruction of the Iraqi factions’ capabilities.

The context for these strikes is a deteriorating security environment in Iraq. Since the US and Israel began airstrikes in February, Iran has sought to turn Iraq into a frontline. The country has endured more than 1,000 drone and missile strikes on the Kurdistan Region. Iran and allied militias have mounted 600 attacks across Iraq, some targeting US diplomatic sites. The US withdrew its forces from Iraq on September 30, a deadline agreed upon with Baghdad over previous years. Washington has since warned Americans against traveling to Baghdad.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of militias that has previously attacked Israel and the US, published a statement claiming Iraqi airspace was being violated. This follows conflicting, unconfirmed accounts of Israeli fighter jets flying through Iraqi airspace near the Iranian border with the support of midair refuelers. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had set up a secret airstrip in Iraq during the campaign against Iran. Most of the major groups in the PMF, apart from the Badr Organization, have been sanctioned by the US as terrorist organizations.

Authorities are still looking into the circumstances of the October 17 blast. More than a week has passed since the explosion with no official update from the Iraqi government. The strikes on the militia warehouses and the subsequent explosion in Baghdad have raised questions about the extent of foreign involvement in Iraq’s internal security. The closure of the crossing near Maysan province, where a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline reportedly originated, underscores the ongoing friction between Iraq and its neighbors.