Iraq closes three border crossings with Iran after drone launch

Iraq closed three border crossings with Iran on Saturday, officials told AFP, after a drone attack on a Saudi Arabian pipeline that both Riyadh and Baghdad said was launched from Iraq.

Following the Friday night attack, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi dismissed the military commander in Missan province, on the Iran border, after authorities determined that the drones had been launched from there.

Two Iraqi security sources told AFP on Saturday that drone launchers were found near a border crossing in Missan.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and an alliance of powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi armed groups said they hadn’t struck the pipeline, though Riyadh has previously accused the groups of targeting its oil infrastructure.

An Iraqi security source and a government official told AFP that authorities ordered the closing of three border crossings with Iran.

The security source said the decision was “part of an intelligence effort to track down the perpetrators and prevent their escape… and to hinder the smuggling of drones through these crossings”.

Both sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media, could not specify when the crossings would reopen.

The closed crossings are Shalamsheh in Basra province, al-Shib in Missan and al-Mandali in the central province of Diyala.

Other border crossings with Iran are still open.

A security official said that “security forces found drone launchers near the Iraq-Iran border in the al-Tib” region, a remote part of Missan, close to the al-Shib crossing. A second security source gave the same account.

Zaidi’s military spokesperson Sabah al-Numan said the prime minister had approved “Iran’s request to conduct a joint investigation into finding drone launch platforms near the Iraq-Iran border”.

The government’s security media cell said earlier that authorities “have started administrative and security reorganisation operations at several border crossings”.

It added that they had stepped up “intelligence activities” to determine “the breaches and violations that took place at these crossings”.

It later announced that passengers stranded for hours at two crossings were permitted to pass.

In July, the United States and Saudi Arabia said they had struck Iran-backed militants in Iraq in response to attacks on US forces and Saudi oil facilities.

Pro-Iran armed groups have supported Tehran during the Middle East war, claiming hundreds of attacks on US bases in Iraq and across the region.

On Saturday, those groups, operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, said they had not struck the pipeline.

It is “an honour that we do not claim”, the Islamic Resistance said in a statement.

Under mounting US pressure, Zaidi has pledged to ensure that armed factions surrender their weapons to the state.

The issue has fuelled tensions in recent weeks, with several groups refusing to disarm.