In his announcement revealing US attacks on Iran, President Trump attacked the Islamic Republic's “representatives” in the region.
“From Lebanon to Yemen and from Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained and financed terrorist militias that have drenched the land in blood and guts,” Trump declared Saturday. The United States, Trump promised, was determined to ensure that Iran's proxies “can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
In fact, Iran has provided military, financial and technical support to several organizations dubbed by Iran as “the Axis of Resistance.” The remote militias represent crucial regional projections of Tehran's power, emissaries of the Persian nation to conflict-torn Arab countries.
Most groups, like Iran itself, are made up of members of the Shia branch of Islam, a minority of global Muslims, but significant populations of the “Shia Crescent” stretching from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterranean. Echoing Iranian positions, the groups embrace the fight against what they call US-Israeli hegemony and the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
Iranian proxies are distinct from mostly Sunni Muslim militant organizations such as Al Qaeda (responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks) and the Islamic State, an offshoot of Al Qaeda.
Despite a shared enmity toward the United States and Israel, Shiite and Sunni militias are bitter sectarian enemies. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State generally view Shiites as infidels and consider Iran a mortal enemy.
Below are some Iranian-backed groups:
Hamas
Hamas supporters march in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2023.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
The only group Trump cited by name, Hamas (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded in 1987, after the start of the first intifada – or uprising – against Israel.
The Sunni Islamist organization did not receive large-scale aid from Iran until the 1990s, and according to Israeli press reports, Israel provided early support as a counterweight to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization. Since 2007, Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip, where it has functioned as a military force and as a de facto government providing social services.
It was Hamas that launched the October 7, 2023, cross-border attacks against Israel that killed some 1,200 people.
Another 251 people were taken hostage. The subsequent war between Israel and Hamas killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, a count that the United Nations and other independent observers consider reliable.
The war, the latest and most extensive Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, has greatly weakened Hamas. Israel says it has killed thousands of fighters, including numerous senior Hamas commanders.
Although Iran is Shiite and Hamas Sunni, a shared opposition to Israel unites them.
Iran and its proxies accuse Israel of carrying out a campaign of mass murder, persecution and ethnic cleansing against indigenous Palestinians, accusations Israel rejects. Hamas is a long-standing rival of the secular Fatah faction, which rules in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.
Another militant faction, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, is a more direct Iranian proxy than Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Hezbollah
Relatives of top Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdullah hold his photograph during a funeral procession in Lebanon in 2024. He died in an Israeli military strike.
(Bilal Hussein / Associated Press)
Hezbollah (“Party of God”) is the crown jewel of Iran’s proxy allies.
Hezbollah, a predominantly Shiite Islamist group, has for decades been a major military and political force in Lebanon, which borders northern Israel.
Sponsored by Iran, Hezbollah emerged from the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90) and in opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its subsequent 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
Posters of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, founder of the Islamic Republic, long adorned walls and streetlights in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Hezbollah also has seats in Lebanon's parliament and, like Hamas, operates a large social services network and has resisted demands to disarm. Hezbollah sent troops to neighboring Syria during that country's civil war (2011-24) to help the government of then-President Bashar Assad, a former ally of Iran.
Hezbollah has been in frequent conflicts with Israel, including a 34-day war in 2006. An Israeli military campaign in 2024 significantly degraded Hezbollah's capabilities. A severe blow was the assassination of the group's former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike. Nasrallah conducted some of his studies in the Iranian city of Qom, a center of Shia studies.
Houthis
Protesters loyal to the Houthi movement demonstrate in Yemen in 2023.
(Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
Officially known as Ansar Allah (“Supporters of God”), the Houthis are based in Yemen, on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is considered the poorest country in the Middle East. Like Hamas, the Houthis emerged as a force before receiving substantial support from Iran.
A civil war in 2014 resulted in the Houthis taking control of the capital, Sanaa, and large areas of northern and northwestern Yemen, including a strategic strip of the Red Sea coast.
Tehran has provided weapons, training and other aid to the Houthis, according to Washington, although the Houthis belong to a branch of Shiite Islam separate from the “Twelve” sect prevalent in Iran.
Since the start of the Gaza war, the Houthis have launched drone and missile attacks against Israel and vessels in the Red Sea, which they claim were connected to Israel, often wrongly. Last year, Trump said he ended a bombing campaign against the Houthis after the group agreed to cease attacks. “They are tough, they are fighters,” he said of the Houthis.
Ansar Allah's informal name, Houthis, comes from the surname of the late political and religious leader, Hussein Badreddin Houthi.
Iraqi groups
For years, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein shut down Iranian influence in his country, viewing Tehran as a threat. Neighboring nations fought a bloody war in the 1980s, started by Hussein, with support from Washington.
But the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Hussein and his Baathist government opened Iraq – with its majority Shiite population – to a large-scale Iranian presence. A number of Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias emerged in Iraq, many of them hostile to the American presence.
These mostly Shiite militias are now grouped under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces. The groups are technically part of the Iraqi armed forces, but some receive help and training from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In January 2020, during Trump's first presidential term, he ordered a drone strike near Baghdad airport that killed Qassem Suleimani, a top Iranian general and head of the elite Quds Force. Several high-ranking militia commanders were also killed.
Suleimani, an Arabic speaker, was a central figure in forming Iran's constellation of representatives. He assisted Iran-linked militias who attacked U.S. troops and bases in Iraq, according to the Pentagon, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers.
Times staff writer Nabih Bulos contributed to this report.
