Khorramshahr

A convoy of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) was seen entering Khorramshahr in southwestern Iran. It is the first visible evidence of foreign fighters entering the Iranian theatre. The PMF is an umbrella organisation of Iraqi Shia militias, several of them funded and trained by Iran, that are formally part of the Iraqi armed forces but operate with a high degree of autonomy.

Khorramshahr sits on the Shatt al-Arab, the river forming the Iraq-Iran border, near Basra. It was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. That Iraqi militias are crossing the border into Iran during a war against the United States is a fact with historical resonances that no actor in the region overlooks.

At least 101 people have been killed in Iraq since the conflict began, including 27 PMF fighters killed by US air strikes across several provinces. The PMF has claimed attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad and on bases in Kuwait. Iran is not alone on the ground. Its network of proxies, built over decades, is activating piece by piece. The Houthis from Yemen, Hezbollah from Lebanon, the PMF from Iraq. The war is regionalising not by accident but by design.