Iraqi intervention in the Syrian civil war

Iraqi intervention in the Syrian civil war
	Part of the Syrian civil war and the war against ISIL in Syria
Date	2013–present
Location	Syria (primarily Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Damascus countryside, Aleppo) and the Iraq–Syria border region
Status	Ongoing: sporadic cross-border security and intelligence cooperation; no continuous Iraqi combat presence inside Syria
Territorial; changes	None for Iraq; limited, temporary tactical gains by allied pro-government forces in Syria
Belligerents
Iraq Iraqi Air Force (since 2018); ; United States Central Command Combined Joint Task Force; ; Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) components operating in Syria; Iraqi Shi'a militias in Syria:; Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba; Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq; Kata'ib Hezbollah; Badr Organization (factions); Contingents under the mixed Liwa Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas umbrella (2013–2024).;	ISIL (core target of Iraqi strikes) Various Syrian opposition factions (2013–2016)
Strength
	Iraqi Air Force: small number of F-16 sorties into eastern Syria (2018); PMF and Iraqi-origin militias in Syria: several thousand at peak, fluctuating by front and period.
Casualties and losses
Unknown	ISIL personnel and infrastructure degraded in eastern Syria (various estimates).

The Iraqi intervention in the Syrian civil war comprises Iraqi state action—most notably limited Iraqi Air Force cross-border airstrikes against ISIL in 2018—and the deployment of Iraqi-origin militias aligned with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Iran to Syrian fronts from 2013 onward in defense of the Assad regime. Iraqi activities in and around Syria were intertwined with the regional war against ISIL, Baghdad’s border security imperatives, and the formation of a four-way intelligence cell with Russia, Iran and Syria in 2015.