Inside the US-Iran Shadow War for Control of the Middle East

Iran's defense ministry has confirmed that one of the country's top nuclear scientists has been assassinated. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has long been suspected by the West and Israel of masterminding a secret nuclear weapons program. He was ambushed with a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a car that later blew up, according to Iranian media reports. In March this year, we got visas for the most enigmatic country in the Middle East, Iran. It had been an insane and tragic 18 months since I was last there. A country that was already on edge after a passenger jet had been shot down over the capital city, had been engulfed by one of the world's worst COVID outbreaks, and ever-tightening sanctions which only seemed to make everyday life more and more difficult. Add to that the assassinations of major national figures and a looming election that could upend the country's politics, and it's been a strange and traumatic time. The timing of our invitation was telling. With a new president in the White House, our government contacts seemed to have a very specific message to send, giving us unprecedented access. We started at the mosque where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is buried. We were there to meet with Seyed Khoshkesam, a pro-government analyst with strong views about foreign interference. How important was Dr. Fakhrizadeh to the Iran nuclear program? He was a key scientist, and the Iranians may not forget his assassination. And who do you think was responsible for the... Israel, for sure, but Iranians also believe that Israel had the go-ahead and the green light from the United States to do such a thing that could trigger war. What is the kind of appropriate response or retaliation for the assassination of someone as important as Dr. Fakhrizadeh? I do believe that it would be happening on a target inside Israel, because they meant to inflict a strategic loss on Iran, so whatever they do should be of strategic importance. But we don't know when, what time, and how, of course. Our conversation with Khoshkesam kicked off the toughest shoot I've done of many in Iran. At a time of extreme tension in the Middle East, and with the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, back on the table after being exited by President Trump, our government contacts and a multitude of Iranian intelligence agencies who tracked our every move wanted us to portray the country as a positive force in the region. While America and its ally Israel were killing scientists, Iran and its unofficial militias were busy fighting terrorists, stabilizing their neighbor Iran, and generally being the good guys in a bad neighborhood. Reality was a lot more complicated. From Iranian-backed militias to a guy in Baghdad with pet flamingos via a holding cell on the Iran-Iraq border, the trip ended up shedding light on a sprawling shadow war between America and Iran for control of the Middle East, a war which Iran seems to be winning. We're at the National Defense Museum, which was set up by the Revolutionary Guard. A lot of this museum focuses on the eight-year Iran-Iraq war and speaks to the imperialist tyranny and injustices of the West. I don't know what this is exactly. Bunker office. I have a bottle of booze. This is Saddam's little bunker. Since 2010, the nuclear scientist community in this country has had targets on their back and have gone through a lot of assassination attempts, many of them successful. Most recently, it was Dr. Fakhrizadeh. There was one scientist who survived the assassination attempt, Dr. Abbasi, and he's coming here to meet with us today, and we're going to look at the car that he was in just before it exploded. This place is pretty epic. First time? First time. Really? We are always in work. So this was the car that you were driving? How does it make you feel today when you see the car for the first time after the attempted assassination? Sir, that was not the response I was expecting, that you would feel envy. Who do you think is responsible for these attacks? Wiping out the top nuclear scientists in this country? This was the first time he'd spoken to foreign media, and after we stopped shooting, he actually told us he was scared for his life while speaking to us out in public. Clearly, this is not traditional warfare, but it's still one that's fought on all fronts. Our next stop was to meet with Kourosh Zareh, a movie director famous for his patriotic depictions of Iranian militarism. What was your inspiration for these projects? Zareh is talking about Qasem Soleimani, a legendary Iranian general and spy master, who before his assassination, under orders from President Trump in 2020, orchestrated a vast willow of Iranian hard and soft power across the Middle East. When I walked in here today, I thought I was going to meet somebody who was making government propaganda. If you had to place your films in a genre, what genre would it be? After this visit, things started to get more serious. We were driven to meet with an alleged ISIS fighter who'd been captured by one of Soleimani's militias. This was set to be the first time an American crew had met an ISIS fighter captured by Iran. So we are in a hotel in an undisclosed location in Tehran, awaiting the arrival of two ISIS prisoners who've been sentenced for execution. And they're being transported here. Sure. It's probably not good. The trouble was, the agencies in charge of following us, at least six according to our government contacts, couldn't always agree on what we were allowed to film. Well, the transfer has been problematic for today, and we'll be waiting for tomorrow. So we have to head to the hotel, I suppose. Oh, we have to leave now. Yeah. All right, guys, it's a wrap. There was a problem with the transfer from the prison. We have no other details. We're going to try again tomorrow. We had some snacks for our special guests. We have no idea when they're getting executed, but we thought they might like some cake. Give them some tasty snacks. So it's the next day, and the ministry's worked it out, and we're able to transport an ISIS prisoner to this undisclosed location today. We're told that he was trained to be a suicide bomber, trained in Syria, and then came back into Iran and got caught. Did you come here to speak with us on your own free will? Are you a member of ISIS? Did you have specific targets that you were supposed to hit? And how big was ISIS's fight against Iran? We couldn't verify the prisoner's story independently, and he was accompanied by guards, but it was clear he had his talking points. He was furthering a narrative about how hard Iran is working to defeat a terror group which the U.S. seems to have forgotten about. That narrative came from the top as well as the bottom. Hossein Amir Abdullahian, known as Mr. Shadow, was described to us as Soleimani's right-hand man, an operative running the general's own personal foreign policy. Do you think the fight against ISIS could bring Iran and the United States closer together? We cannot allow ISIS to reopen and regroup and threaten people in the Middle East and Europe and the United States and elsewhere. What does the U.S. need to do to get the Iranians to agree to start discussions again for the JCPOA? The JCPOA would destroy the credibility of the U.S. in the world. President Trump easily withdrew from an international agreement that had been discussed for at least three years and, in our opinion, 12 years. President Trump easily withdrew from an international agreement that had been discussed for at least three years and, in our opinion, 12 years. Iran's behavior has been described as imperialism, but we heard time and again from the Iranians that they were simply reacting to conflict across their border. Either way, their influence has grown exponentially. It was time to go see for ourselves. We got in our crew van and headed for the Iraqi border. So we are about 10 and a half hours outside of Tehran. We've been driving all night. We're going to the Mehran border crossing into Iraq. The borders right now are closed up here due to COVID, but they're being especially open for us so we can get across and connect with the Badr Brigade. The plan was to meet up with the Badr Brigade, Iran's oldest proxy in Iraq and perhaps the most powerful of Soleimani's militias. Since the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the Badr Brigade has served as Iran's enforcers in the country and today are as famous for fighting ISIS as for their brutal treatment of anyone who crosses them. We are getting very close to the Iran-Iraq border and we kind of don't know what's happening. Hopefully the Badr Brigades are there and anxiously awaiting our arrival and that the Iranians let us exit smoothly. We're hoping for the best. Yeah, we're rolling. So, successful exit from Iran, not a successful entry into Iraq. We're kind of stuck in this 15 by 30 holding cell just waiting and no one knows anything about anything, including us. Good times. How are you feeling now, Soroush? I feel like I can really do this right now. It's been six, more than six hours now. Oh, and he's unlocking the door. Oh, he's letting these guys through. I thought he was gonna be giving us our freedom. Sun is going down. They just turned the lights off in here. This doesn't bode well. Everybody's gone radio silent, all our people. Are you saying that since we got the message that intelligence and interior ministry spoke about it for four hours this afternoon, but it's resolved now, since then they've continued to interfere? So, the Iraqis who don't like the Iran's kind of influence and power in their country are the ones who are meddling. That's what he's saying, right? So, after spending, I think, close to eight hours in that weird holding cell in no man's land between the Iran and Iraq borders, we finally were let in. Over 24 hours later, we finally made it. I was really worried about exiting Iran. That was my big fear because we'd been tracked and monitored by, you know, six different agencies within the government, three of them intelligence units. I'm really happy. We're gonna be sleeping in a hotel. Never been so happy to be in Baghdad. In death, Soleimani, who was designated a terrorist by the U.S., looms large over Iraq. This country was the crown jewel in his life's work to spread Iranian influence from the Mediterranean Sea to Yemen in the south and through Syria and Iraq. Fighting off groups like ISIS and seizing the initiative as U.S. influence in the region waned. Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qasem Soleimani. The Pentagon claims that via his militias, Soleimani was responsible for more than 600 U.S. deaths in Iraq. This is all just the latest chapter in U.S.-Iranian relations that have been fraught The CIA orchestrated a coup in Iran against the democratically elected leader in 1979 when the Iranian revolution saw U.S. diplomats taken hostage. So we are on the way to Baghdad International Airport to take a look at the assassination site where Trump ordered the drone strike on General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. There he is, there's al-Muhandis. They renamed the street after him. One of the cars, I think, was attacked here, as you can see on the blast wall. And then down there, there's another. The rest of the wall also has that kind of damage on it. So this is the memorial that they built after the assassination took place. The cars got completely mangled. It's like they've been inverted. Soleimani was the second most powerful man in Iran after the supreme leader. Muhandis here was revered. And the two of them together, they were the most effective deterrents on the ground in the fight against ISIS. So everybody in Iranian Iraq are asking, like, well, why did the U.S. take them out? Is it a misstep? Or was it superintentional and they knew what the consequences of it were going to be because it inflamed the tensions with Iran and it pissed everyone in Iraq off? And from a foreign policy perspective, almost lead to all-out war. A few minutes after we arrived, this guy showed up. We're pretty sure this wasn't a chance encounter. Can you tell me why you came here? We saw you walking up and looking very emotional as you were walking up. Can you tell me a little bit about your injury, what happened? And did you know Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis? If that meeting was orchestrated by unseen Iranian forces, our next interviewee likely played a part in it. Mohannad al-Aqabi oversees all media and communications for all Iranian militias, known as Hashid al-Shaabi, in Iraq. We paid him a visit at home. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us into your home. This is amazing. Most of the things here are old. I mean, there are some things I took as a gift. There are some things I bought. These are cars. This is English. This is Japanese. This is leather. They call it gazelle leather. And this is a scent I've had for about ten years. This is the scent I have. Do you have a smell? It smells great. Can I open this? Backwards. Let's finish the documentary with this. I really like your flamingos. Why would you eat a flamingo? This is totally unacceptable. It's a beautiful bird. I don't know. When I see them, it's like they remind me of the incident. Their presence was close to the incident. It's a big question. I consider myself a leader, both Hajj Abu Mahdi and Hajj al-Qasim. Sometimes we try to imitate what Abu Mahdi and Hajj al-Qasim do. Because we feel they are a good example for humanity. What is the goal and purpose of Hashd al-Shaabi? And their assassinations, how that will affect these groups? My main goal is that terrorist groups control Iraqi cities. On this basis, there was a fatwa about how Hashd al-Shaabi was formed. The second question is did Hashd al-Shaabi affect the martyrdom of Abu Mahdi and Hajj al-Qasim? The popularity of Abu Mahdi and Hajj al-Qasim increased in Iraq after their martyrdom. Compared to two or three months before the martyrdom of Hajj al-Qasim and Abu Mahdi, it's better now. Hashd al-Shaabi is stronger now. How closely linked is Iran to the Hashd al-Shaabi groups? The only country that helped Iraq during ISIS was Iran. When the cities of Iraq fell, Hajj al-Qasim came. Not only the volunteers of Hashd al-Shaabi, but also the army and police. Weapons and equipment were delivered by phone. Why do you think America designated General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi as terrorists? Next up was a meeting with Hadi al-Amiri, feared leader of the Baathar Brigade, and now of all Iranian militias in Iraq. He once visited President Obama at the White House, despite having been accused by a U.S. diplomat of using power drills to pierce the skulls of his enemies. And he has quite the origin story. Your story is really fascinating to me. You were born in Iraq, you moved to Iran, you fought in the Iran-Iraq war against Iraq and the Saddam regime, and then you started the Baathar Brigades. While you were in Iran, when we talk about Iranian influence in Iraq, does it start with you? And was it General Soleimani who helped put it all together? Was he kind of the architect of what the Iraqi government looks like today? Why do you think the U.S. killed the two most powerful leaders here in the fight against ISIS? The U.S. said that there was an imminent threat against them, and that's why they sent the drone and the missiles that led to the death of these two. So we think of ISIS as having been defeated. You know, that's what the news reports told us in America. But what level is their threat here today? We are driving through Ashra, the main base for Hashd al-Shaabi, shared by the 50-plus groups in the country. It's essentially the base for the resistance to fight against ISIS, and it's absolutely massive. We don't know the specifics, but if Iran is backing all these groups, they're funneling a shedload of cash into this place. And does this gun, it can rotate all the way around, right? And how far does it shoot? It's pretty huge. Wow. That's far. Do you feel like your soldiers are equipped enough in their battles against ISIS? You must need a lot of weapons for the battles that Hashd al-Shaabi has been fighting. Where do the supplies come from? How close has ISIS been getting to this position? Our ice is still coming here on a regular basis. Are you still catching them? So we are in Tahrir Square in Baghdad. The green zone is behind me over there. You know, I've been here four times since 2006, and every time I come, the U.S. presence in this country diminishes. And today, there are 2,500 U.S. troops in this country, which is next to nothing compared to how it used to be. Meanwhile, there are 130,000 Hashd al-Shaabi soldiers out in the field fighting ISIS right now, and that number is growing. You know, the question I'm wondering right now is what happens to the 130,000 Hashd al-Shaabi soldiers that are currently out in the field fighting ISIS when that war ends? I mean, this is ideological, and their power and influence is only growing. In June 2021, an election in Iran may see an even more hardline president in the Iranian capital. With the U.S. now increasingly disengaged from the Middle East and no sign of Iran and its proxies going anywhere, it looks a lot like U.S. taxpayers have spent trillions of dollars and countless lives only to hand control of the world's most volatile region to their adversaries in Tehran. These are the unintended consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The country has become a de facto commonwealth state of Iran. Shadow wars continue to rage, and we're not even close to a resolution.