Saraya Awliya al-Dam Finds New Mission in Israel Attacks

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Saraya Awliya al-Dam (SAD) (Companies of the Guardians of Blood) is one of the oldest yet least consistent players within the pantheon of "facade groups" used by the self-styled Iraqi muqawama to conceal the exact responsibility for their attacks on domestic and foreign targets. Emerging in a brief August-October 2020 series of roadside bomb attacks against Iraqi convoys servicing U.S. logistical supply lines, SAD then reemerged in the much more serious February 16, 2021 rocket attack on Erbil city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Then SAD tried briefly to stake out the anti-air part of anti-U.S. resistance activities on June 27, 2021, but without following through with any known action.

Back in action - allegedly against Israel

Now SAD is back in a new sequence of attacks, this time focused on Israel. The pattern is clear: the group claimed drone attacks on Israel using Iran-designed Shahed-101 X-tail drones, including attacks so far on May 30, 2024 (Haifa harbor), June 2 (Haifa refinery and harbor), June 8 (Rabin power plant) and June 14 (a "spy base" in Golan). There is no evidence of any of these drones reaching Israel or causing damage. (See our tracker for details of all attacks.)

Anti-Israel attacks are a natural choice for SAD. On September 27 2021, Sabereen News posted a statement that read: "Saraya Awliya al-Dam (SAD) reconfirms its oath to…[Qasem] Soleimani and [Abu Mahdi] al-Muhandis to behead anyone who calls for normalization [with Israel] in the land of Ali and Hussein [Iraq]" (Figure 1).

SAD's new videos

Each of the first three purported attacks on Israel were accompanied by a launch video that showed not only Shahed-101 launches but also the antics of a small squad of masked commandos standing in a dark, supposedly underground room in which two Shahed-101 drones sit next to packing crates. Pictures adorn the walls of religious figures and muqawama martyrs:

• first Ali Khamenei, the late Ebrahim Raisi and Ali al-Sistani on May 30;
• then Soleimani and Muhandis on June 2; and
• then (in the June 8 video) a range of other martyrs comprising Mohammed Jassim Sayyid Mutlaq al-Gharawi (Abu Saif al-Gharrawi) and Mahdi al-Kinani (Asaib Ahl al-Haq. both killed by the Islamic State in Samarra in 2015), Abu Taqwa al-Saeedi (Harakat al-Nujaba member killed by the U.S. on January 4, 2024), Abu Baqr al-Saedi (Kataib Hezbollah member killed by the U.S. on February 7, 2024); Abu Muntadher al-Mohammadawi (Badr, killed by the Islamic State in Anbar in 2015)

SAD also resurrected its old anti-air theme. On June 6, 2024, SAD posted an image of a masked commando with an IGLA-9K38 Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS).

Israel's February 21 strike on Albu Kamal

The SAD facade brand has most regularly been tied to Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS) (Masters of the Martyrs Brigade), a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization since November 17, 2023 and the faction in command of the 14th Brigade of the Iraqi government's Population Mobilization Forces (PMF).

In February 2021, the U.S. launched lethal airstrikes on KSS personnel as retaliation for the group's assessed involvement in the February 16, 2021, rocket attack on Erbil airport. At the time, one of the group's members, Haidar Hamza Abbas Mustafa al-Bayati, was captured and made a confession in relation to the attack. Now Israel seems to have followed the same pattern. On June 21, 2024, a new explosion in Albu Kamal claimed the life of one KSS member, according to the group. This was probably an Israeli airstrike, though muqawama channels quickly speculated that it may have been a U.S. strike and (unsubstantiated) rumors spread of a militia counter-strike on Al-Tanf.

If SAD is under the control of KSS, this strike may have been retaliation for the recent spate of SAD operations against Israel. On January 24, 2024, KSS leader Abu Ala al-Walai (real name Hashim Bunyan al-Siraji) announced the start of the second phase of Iraqi muqawama operations in solidarity with the Hamas war. According to him, "[This phase] will include enforcing the blockade on Zionist maritime navigation in the Mediterranean Sea and render the [Israeli] entity's ports out of service...This will continue until the unjust siege on Gaza is lifted and the horrific Zionist massacres against its people are stopped". SAD's actions - albeit with a four-month time lag - seem to fit what he was talking about.

Why does SAD claim separately from Islamic Resistance in Iraq?

SAD was an inconsistent presence in the anti-U.S. attacks in 2020-2021, dropping in and out. It may show the same lack of staying power in the anti-Israeli attacks. KSS has always been one of the messier muqawama outfits, whether showing its dysfunction in arms depot fires that showered Baghdad with deadly rockets or by the nepotistic failures of Abu Alaa's son Jaafar. KSS claims have often overreached, such as their threats against aircraft.

Even so, SAD's resurfacing now is intriguing: if SAD members are KSS, were they taking part in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq campaign under the joint umbrella until now, in line with Abu Ala's exhortation? If not, why did they join in now? If they were part of attacks all along, why did they break out their own brand now, rather than earlier or later? Does it indicate a rift or a need to gain more direct credit, as Nujaba and KH have occasionally sought by claiming attacks also branded by IRI? The recent SAD attacks do not appear to have been also claimed by IRI, nor were they undertaken in partnership with IRI (as the joint attacks with the Houthis have been).