![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Qassem-Suleimani-on-the-ground-near-Amerli.jpg\")
<\/a>Qassem Suleimani (right) on the front line in the fight against ISIS near Amerli, Iraq, 2014. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n
Two senior intelligence sources said that Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran\u2019s powerful Quds force, summoned the militias under Tehran\u2019s influence three weeks ago, amid a heightened state of tension in the region. The move to mobilise Iran\u2019s regional allies is understood to have triggered fears in the US that Washington\u2019s interests in the Middle East are facing a pressing threat. The UK raised its threat levels for British troops in Iraq<\/a> on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n While Suleimani has met regularly with leaders of Iraq\u2019s myriad Shia groups over the past five years, the nature and tone of this gathering was different. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t quite a call to arms, but it wasn\u2019t far off,\u201d one source said.<\/span><\/p>\n The meeting has led to a frenzy of diplomatic activity between US, British and Iraqi officials who are trying to banish the spectre of clashes between Tehran and Washington and who now fear that Iraq could become an arena for conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n The gathering partly informed a US decision to evacuate non-essential diplomatic staff from the US embassy in Baghdad and Erbil and to raise the threat status at US bases in Iraq. It also coincided with a perceived separate risk to US interests and those of its allies in the Persian Gulf and led to a heightened threat that more than a decade of proxy conflicts may spill over into a direct clash between Washington and Tehran.<\/span><\/p>\n Leaders of all the militia groups that fall under the umbrella of Iraq\u2019s Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs) were in attendance at the meeting called by Suleimani, the intelligence sources claimed. One senior figure who learned about the meeting had since met with western officials to express concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n As the head of the elite Quds force, Suleimani plays a significant role in the militias\u2019 strategic directions and major operations. Over the past 15 years, he has been Iran\u2019s most influential powerbroker in Iraq and Syria, leading Tehran\u2019s efforts to consolidate its presence in both countries and trying to reshape the region in its favour.<\/span><\/p>\n The US has become increasingly vocal about the activities of Iranian proxies in the Middle East. Donald Trump this month named Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a western-designated terrorist group financed by Iran<\/a> and Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah, as partly responsible for a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n On Sunday, four ships \u2013 two of them Saudi oil tankers \u2013 were reportedly sabotaged off the UAE coast<\/a>. The following day, drones launched by Iranian-allied rebels in Yemen attacked two Saudi pipelines. Saudi state media on Thursday called for \u201csurgical strikes\u201d<\/a> against Iranian targets in response and its senior officials have told Washington that they expect it to act in its interests.<\/span><\/p>\n Adding to concerns is a belief that a convoy of Iranian-supplied missiles was last week successfully transported across Iraq\u2019s Anbar province into Syria, where it was transferred safely to Damascus, regional diplomats told the Guardian. The transfer managed to evade US and Israeli intelligence, despite the latter\u2019s interdiction of dozens of alleged missile deliveries in the past three years that have been flown into various Syrian airbases via an airbridge.<\/span><\/p>\n Fears of an Iranian-run land corridor emerging from the fight against the Islamic State, in which Shia militia groups played a prominent role, have been central to concerns that postwar Iraq and Syria could be subverted by regional manoeuvrings.<\/span><\/p>\n That Iran could emerge emboldened from the Isis fight has dominated recent discussions among Donald Trump\u2019s uber-hawks, the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, both of whom are central to an escalating US sanctions programme and Washington\u2019s abandonment of an international nuclear deal signed by Tehran and the former US president Barack Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n The Trump administration has remained wary of the Iraqi militias. Although they jointly led the fight against Isis, such groups were integrated into the Iraqi state structure, and have drawn increasing comparisons with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps. While they include some Sunni, Christian and Yazidi units, they are dominated by Shia groups, the most powerful of whom enjoy the direct patronage of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n