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11:44

Iraq Pulled Into Iran War As Tehran Expands The Battlefield

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  Frud Bezhan

Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces stand guard at a military base near the Iraqi-Syrian border in Al-Qaim. (file photo)

Since the United States and Israel launched their bombing campaign against Iran, Tehran has expanded the battlefield across the Middle East.

That includes in Irans western neighbor, Iraq, where Tehrans proxy forces have carried out almost daily attacks against US targets, including diplomatic and military facilities, triggering retaliatory American air strikes.

Iran itself has carried out waves of missile and drone strikes in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north, where Iranian Kurdish opposition groups operate camps and offices.

The intensifying violence has threatened to destabilize Iraq, a Shiite-majority country of some 46 million people that is still recovering from years of insecurity following the US-led invasion in 2003 and the long conflict it set off.

The chances of Iraq being pulled deeper into the Iran war are extremely high, said Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank.

That's partly a result of Tehran's influence, especially over the past two decades, where the regime has become in many ways inextricably linked with Iraqi militias.

Read morehere.

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11:30

UK Couple Being Used As 'Human Shields' In Iran, Says Family

Craig and Lindsay Foreman were on a motorbiking trip across the world when they were arrested in Iran in January 2025. (file photo)

The family of a British couple imprisoned in Iran say the pair are being used as effective human shields amid the US-Israeli war, as they renewed criticism of the UK governments efforts to secure their release.

Lindsay and Craig Foreman are being held in harsh conditions in Tehrans Evin prison, their son Joe Bennett said, according to Reuters.

"My parents are living under a 'drone of drones', the constant, maddening buzz of 600 machines in the sky," Joe Bennett, Lindsay Foreman's son, said in a statement.

"They are sharing small rectangular cells with rats and cockroaches, sleeping on metal bunks without mattresses in a state of constant physical pain."

The couple were arrested in January 2025 while passing through Kerman during a round-the-world motorcycle trip. They were later sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges, which they and their family deny.