هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Until recently, Hajji Hamed’s name rarely appeared in public discussion. That changed after the 11 September 2026 attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline. Iraqi reports named him as an Iranian commander involved in overseeing armed factions in Iraq and alleged that he played a role in the attack. That allegation remains unverified. Who is he, and what is known about his role?
The Jubeir assassination plot
Hajji Hamed’s name appeared in public records in 2011, during an investigation into a plot to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, then Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington and later its foreign minister.
Identified as Hamed Abdollahi, or Mostafa Abdollahi, he was named as a senior officer in Iran’s Quds Force in US Treasury Department records concerning the plot. His name later appeared in the official sanctions registry.
The US account said he had authority to supervise others in an operation beyond Iran’s borders. Reports about his career place his involvement in the Quds Force well before the Jubeir case.
Unit 400
Arab and Western sources have linked Abdollahi to Unit 400, described as one of the Quds Force’s most secretive units.
A study by the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point linked the unit to covert and logistical operations outside Iran. Arab reporting on Abdollahi’s career said he went on to lead it.
According to those reports, Abdollahi joined the Quds Force in 1997 and held intelligence and operational posts before taking command of Unit 400. They also describe a longstanding relationship with Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US strike on his convoy after it left Baghdad International Airport in early 2020.
The Arab account says Abdollahi served as Soleimani’s deputy when Soleimani commanded the Revolutionary Guard’s 41st Tharallah Division in Kerman province.
Unit 400 is described as a core part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. An account of the Quds Force’s activities characterises its fighters as operating “without borders”, referring to the breadth of their activities outside Iran.
Together, these accounts portray Abdollahi as a senior figure in Iran’s overseas operations, although much of his career remains difficult to establish independently.
After Soleimani’s death
The killing of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020 left the Quds Force without the commander who had built its relationships with Iraqi armed factions. Esmail Ghaani took command, but Soleimani’s personal relationships could not simply be passed on to his successor. The question of how to divide responsibility for relations with the Iraqi factions then came to the fore.
In the following years, Iraqi reports suggested that Abdollahi had taken on a prominent role in the Quds Force’s dealings with Iraqi armed groups. Press accounts also described him as one of Ghaani’s aides responsible for relations with those factions.
His name resurfaced after a reported operation by US and Saudi aircraft against Popular Mobilisation Forces headquarters and other armed groups’ sites in Iraq. Reports said the strikes had killed six Iranian advisers and suggested that Abdollahi was among them. They described him as Ghaani’s deputy for Iraqi affairs.
Reports at the time also alleged that Iraqi armed groups attacking Gulf states and Jordan were operating under Hajji Hamed’s direct supervision. One possible explanation for the attention given to his name is that figures within Iraq’s governing establishment wanted to distance established factions from those attacks by portraying the perpetrators as dissident elements coordinating with his group. The reporting cited here does not establish who circulated that account.
The Saudi pipeline attack
On 11 September 2026, drones attacked Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline. Saudi Arabia said they had come from Iraqi territory. Baghdad later confirmed that the attacks had been launched from a site in Maysan province and began a wide-ranging security operation and investigation.
Iraqi media reports again named “Hajji Hamed” as responsible. Several Iraqi newspapers and news sites published details about the group said to have carried out the attack, giving the allegation what appeared to be unusually extensive coverage.
The reports warrant caution. They emerged as the Iraqi government faced questions about an attack launched from its territory, despite its longstanding pledge that Iraq would not be used as a base for attacks on neighbouring countries. The attention given to Hajji Hamed’s name raises the possibility that information was circulated deliberately. It also sits uneasily with earlier reports that he may have been killed in the US and Saudi strikes.
Reports on Iraqi armed groups have also described efforts to restructure them as the Iraqi government presses to bring weapons under state control. In June 2026, Reuters cited Iraqi security, political and field sources as saying that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had begun forming small, covert cells outside the traditional structures of armed factions loyal to Tehran.
Hajji Hamed may have a role in organising those cells. If so, operating outside established faction structures could help them evade government scrutiny and shield those factions from blame for their attacks. The accounts cited here, however, do not establish his involvement. Nor do they establish who attributed the pipeline attack to him or passed the allegation to the media.
One possible explanation is that naming him helped figures in Iraq deflect responsibility from armed factions that continue to retain their weapons, while reducing the risk of another Saudi strike that would expose the limits of the government’s control. The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement after the attack, and the Iraqi and Saudi foreign ministers subsequently held talks aimed at averting escalation. Neither development establishes who was behind the attack.
Hajji Hamed is named in US sanctions records and linked in subsequent reports to Quds Force operations over more than two decades. But two questions remain unresolved: was he killed in the reported US and Saudi strikes on Popular Mobilisation Forces and other armed groups’ headquarters in July, making it easier for others to attribute the pipeline attack to him? Or does the renewed attention to his name reflect continuing uncertainty about his whereabouts and his role among Iraq’s armed factions?