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Trump’s war in Iran continues to cause havoc in the region and harm U.S. business, but now it’s Iraq which is heading towards a civil war that could wipe out U.S. oil investors there

Israel/U.S. forces have attacked Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, sparking very real worries there that the so-called Iran war is going to spill over into other countries and become a regional conflict. The attack from the air on PMF forces in the west of Iraq on Wednesday, March 25th, was probably aimed at killing its leader and will be seen as an event at odds with what Donald Trump is doing, which is to de-escalate the war while he backs away and declares a victory. However, as we had seen just days earlier with a huge attack on Iran’s gas fields, Israel is working on its own logic and has little concern for the global price of oil. In fact, it could be argued that while Trump tries to keep the price of oil below $100 USD per barrel and is aiming to control how the war is carried out, in terms of what is off limits and what is a fair target, Israel is going to great lengths to throw the global economy into turmoil for its own agenda to bring the U.S. into a longer, deeper war with Iran.

The Iraq attack is a good example of this. A regional flare-up which ignited tensions between rival groups in Iraq could very easily start a civil war there where U.S. companies have considerable investment in oil fields — which have been shut down due to the war which started on February 28th. Iraq is managing to export a little of its oil across the border into Turkey using its neighbour’s Mediterranean port, but only in limited amounts.

The attack by aircraft which have yet to be identified killed at least 15 PMF fighters in the airstrikes that hit a headquarters of the group in Iraq’s Euphrates valley province of Anbar, according to the sources and a statement from the group.

According to the Saudi press, the dead included the PMF’s operations commander in the province, Saad al-Baiji. Later on the same day, a large crowd of angry mourners carried his coffin and portraits through the streets of the country’s capital, Baghdad.

The PMF claimed in a statement that U.S. forces had targeted a command headquarters in Anbar while personnel were on duty. Anbar is a huge province in the west of Iraq and no details were given of a particular location. The security sources said the strikes there hit during a meeting attended by senior commanders.

The strike on the PMF is a good example of how alliances in the Middle East can shift and once-allies can become enemies, even with the Americans.

The PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella group of mostly Shia militias that was formally integrated into Iraq’s state security forces when the so-called ’war against terror’ kicked off at the end of President Obama’s term in the Oval Office.

Ironically, it was the PMF who played a decisive role in the campaign which Trump inherited and took great credit for when he came into office in January 2016. The war itself was about wiping out as many ISIS fighters in cities in western Iraq and Syria, and PMF forces were reported at the time to do the toughest fighting close up, while Iranian commanders helped in the operations room along with U.S. generals.

Today the PMF, which probably carried out a number of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq when Israel and the U.S. started the war, stands both as an enemy and an important pawn in the war which Israel would like to use to escalate the conflict in the region.

It is believed that Israel is carrying out a number of false flag attacks in GCC countries in a desperate bid to pull the U.S. into a longer, drawn-out regional war against Iran. The attack on the PMF will be seen as an obvious strike, with clear objectives for Israel, but not very helpful for the Trump administration which, it could be argued, has lost control totally of the conflict.

Iraq’s PM will be very worried now about the real possibility of a civil war erupting and rival, polarized groups returning to the tit-for-tat car bomb attacks in one another’s neighbourhoods in Baghdad.

Other than the 15 dead, thirty other people were wounded, security and health sources said. The health sources said some of the wounded were in critical condition and the death toll could rise. Reuters filmed ambulances bringing the wounded to hospital in the regional capital Ramadi during the night.

“The conflict has spilled beyond Iran’s borders, with Tehran launching strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. military installations, while Israel has carried out attacks in Lebanon following cross-border fire by Iran-aligned Hezbollah,” writes Al Arabiya, copying international newswire narrative.