Regional intelligence and partner assessments indicate that this week’s attacks on Saudi Arabia were carried out by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement from Iraqi territory and in concert with Iraqi armed groups, two regional officials said. Those assessments diverge from official accounts that have focused on Iraqi militias acting alone.
The operations reportedly included strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, the kingdom’s primary crude producing region. Saudi authorities responded with joint air operations alongside the United States on Wednesday, targeting sites in Iraq they said were connected to the attacks. Official Saudi statements have blamed Iraqi armed groups aligned with Iran for the strikes on Saudi territory. Yemen’s Houthis have publicly said they carried out the attacks. Iraqi authorities have said they are investigating the incidents.
According to the regional officials who provided the assessments, some of the strikes were launched from within Iraq by Iraqi factions together with Houthi forces, and the planning and supervision of these operations involved Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. After the Saudi-US strikes on Iraqi targets, media outlets aligned with Iran lamented the deaths of IRGC personnel, Iraqi fighters and at least one member of the Houthi movement.
Observers and analysts cited by regional sources say the pattern of activity points to increasingly direct training and coordination between various members of what is often referred to as the Axis of Resistance - a network of Iran-aligned militias and groups - and not only to coordination between those groups and Tehran. "There is now direct training and coordination between members of the Axis of Resistance themselves, not just between them and Iran," said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme.
Those analysts see Iraq taking on a more central operational role within the axis, a development they link to shifts elsewhere in the region. The assessments note that Iraq’s geography - with large expanses and a long, difficult-to-police border with Saudi Arabia - makes it useful as a location from which to conceal and launch covert operations. Iraqi territory shares more than 800 kilometres of frontier with Saudi Arabia, a border that officials from Gulf states have described as challenging to secure.
Officials in Gulf capitals have previously blamed groups operating in Iraq for hundreds of cross-border attacks on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Examples cited by regional officials include a drone strike on the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in March and a strike in May on the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant. Iraqi authorities have repeatedly said they would investigate claims that attacks originated from inside their borders, but critics argue Baghdad has demonstrated limited capacity to prevent or halt such operations, a failure that has strained its relations and credibility with neighbouring Gulf states.
Cooperation between the Houthis and Iran-aligned Iraqi factions has a well-established history, particularly with groups such as Kataib Hezbollah, which analysts describe as the most heavily armed and most organized of the Iraqi factions aligned with Iran. In 2024, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced the creation of a joint operations room with Iraqi factions, and later that year the two sides declared their first joint operation targeting Israel. The Houthis maintain a formal presence in Iraq, including offices and a designated representative, Ahmed al-Sharafi, who has met publicly with Iran-aligned Shi’ite parties and armed factions inside Iraq.
Symbols and messaging associated with the Houthi movement have been visible in parts of Baghdad for years. Red and green posters bearing the Houthi slogan - its so-called "Sarkha" reading "God is greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam" - have been displayed publicly in parts of the Iraqi capital.
The recent events also had immediate political ramifications inside Iraq. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi cancelled a scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the Saudi strikes on Iraqi sites. Separately, Zaidi has proposed a timeline aiming to bring all armed groups under state control by the end of September, a plan that faces resistance from some factions that retain independent control of weapons and territory.
Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi governments did not provide comment in response to requests. The Houthis reiterated a position they have stated in prior incidents - that their strikes on Saudi Arabia are a response to Saudi attacks in Yemen and part of an effort to break what they describe as a "siege" imposed by the kingdom. Saudi officials have rejected the description of a siege, noting the arrival of dozens of commercial vessels to ports controlled by Houthi forces earlier this year.
This developing picture draws attention to both the operational ties among Iran-aligned groups across multiple countries and to the ways in which Iraq is being used as a geographic and logistical node for attacks affecting Gulf states. The findings in these regional assessments highlight persistent challenges for Gulf security and for Baghdad’s relations with its neighbours as investigations and diplomatic fallout continue.