Iraqi militias at war:attack claims and media networks.

Who is behind Iraq's wartime attack claims?

Six Telegram publishers, the militia media networks that carried them, and the places they said they struck.

The war between the United States, Israel and Iran began on 28 February 2026. Iran-aligned Iraqi militias joined the fighting and issued hundreds of attack claims. Six Telegram channels published the claims examined here: two under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) name and four under separate names.

Iraq Monitor examined 961,704 posts from 216 monitored Telegram channels between 28 February and 8 April 2026, including 867 posts from those six publishing channels. We traced how the claims circulated, assessed which established militias likely stood behind each name, and mapped the targets they named.

What the evidence shows

IRI's two channels often published identical statements, but Kataib Hezbollah (KH) and Harakat al-Nujaba media outlets usually forwarded different copies. The separate names had distinct media links: Saraya Awliya al-Dam to Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS), and Jaysh al-Ghadab and Ashab al-Kahf to Nujaba. On balance, Rijal al-Bas al-Shadid is likely an Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) facade: the AAH-aligned Huruf Sumerian News repeatedly carried its material, including a new statement on 29 September.

How the claim names fit together

Iraq Monitor assesses that some separate claim names represent operational cells directly trained and funded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), while embedded in established Iraqi militia systems. In this model, Nujaba or KSS provide infrastructure and share operational supervision with the Quds Force, which delegates some responsibilities to them. Separate cell identities can therefore persist alongside the collective IRI umbrella. This is an assessment of the organisational relationship, distinct from the media affiliations established by the Telegram analysis.

The six channels used to claim attacks