US journalist kidnapped in Baghdad by plainclothes forces, source says
American journalist Shelly Kittleson was abducted on Palestine Street in central Baghdad by masked plainclothes forces likely linked to the intelligence wing of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, an informed source in Baghdad told Iran International.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry said the journalist was abducted by unidentified individuals, adding that security forces have launched a manhunt, arrested one suspect after a pursuit and vehicle crash, and are continuing efforts to rescue the victim and apprehend the remaining suspects.
The 33-page document shared with Iran International by the hacktivist group Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) has been marked “very confidential” and is titled Instruction for Identification, Maintenance, and Use of Positions.
The document is attributed to the Specialized Documents Center of the Intelligence and Operations Deputy of the IRGC's missile command.
A framework for missile operations
What emerges from the directive is a bureaucratic framework for missile deployment that goes well beyond hardened silos or underground “missile cities.”
The text lays out categories of launch positions, inspection procedures, coding systems, site records, chains of responsibility and rules for maintaining access to a wide network of locations that can be used before, during and after missile fire.
Its significance lies not only in the variety of launch positions it defines, but in the explicit inclusion of non-military environments in that system.
In its introduction, the document says missile positions are an inseparable part of missile warfare tactics and argues that the enemy’s growing ability to detect, track and destroy missile systems requires special rules for identifying, selecting, using and maintaining such positions.
It adds that the use of “deception,” “cover” and “normalization” alongside other methods would make the force more successful in using those positions.
That language is important. It suggests the document is not merely about protecting fixed military assets. It is about making missile units harder to distinguish from their surroundings and harder to detect in the first place.
Civilian locations as missile cover
The implication of the directive is that it describes a system for embedding missile activity within ordinary civilian geography.
Rather than relying only on conventional military facilities, the document sets out a model in which missile units can move across a wider landscape of pre-identified sites selected for concealment, access and operational utility.
The result is a structure that appears designed to preserve launch capability while reducing visibility and complicating detection.
The clearest indication comes in the section on what the document describes as artificial dispersion or cover positions. These include service, industrial and sports centers, as well as sheds and warehouses – places that are civilian in function or appearance, but can be repurposed to hide missile units.
The conditions listed for such sites include being enclosed, not overlooked by surrounding buildings, and either lacking CCTV cameras or allowing them to be switched off.
Taken together, those requirements point to a deliberate screening process for civilian sites that can be used as missile cover. The concern is not only protection from attack, but invisibility within the civilian landscape.
The broader structure of the document reinforces that conclusion. It contains sections on site identities, naming and coding, inspections of routes and positions, record maintenance and responsibilities across intelligence, operations, engineering, communications, safety, health and counterintelligence.
This is the language of a standing system, not an improvised wartime workaround.
A system for concealment
Farzin Nadimi, a senior defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute who reviewed the document for Iran International’s The Lead with Niusha Saremi, said the text points to a database-driven effort to identify areas around missile bases that can be used for different kinds of positions.
He said the IRGC missile force appears to have mapped not only launch positions, but also dispersal, deception and technical positions – the latter being places suitable for storing launchers and support vehicles and, when needed, preparing missiles for firing.
“These technical positions,” Nadimi said, “can include large, covered spaces such as industrial sheds or sports halls, where missile launchers and support vehicles can be brought inside, and where missiles can be mounted onto launchers, warheads attached and, in the case of liquid-fueled systems, fueling operations carried out.”
That point is critical. If civilian-looking or civilian-owned structures are being used not only to shelter launchers, but also to prepare them for launch, then the document describes more than concealment. It describes the embedding of missile operations inside civilian infrastructure.
A network built for dispersal
Nadimi also said the directive places repeated emphasis on speed – getting launch vehicles into these buildings quickly before launch and returning them to cover quickly afterward.
In his reading, the database tied to these positions includes technical features of each site, access routes and nearby facilities, including the nearest medical center, police station and military post.
It also, he added, records whether use of the property can be coordinated in advance with the owner, including contact details, or whether occupation could occur without prior coordination in urgent cases.
If so, that would suggest the system extends down to the level of property access and local civilian surroundings, turning seemingly ordinary sites into preplanned nodes in a missile network.
The document’s own emphasis on route inspection, site profiles, records and coded classification supports the picture of a missile force operating through a dispersed support architecture rather than through fixed bases alone.
Why this puts civilians at risk
Nadimi warned that the use of civilian environments is especially troubling because many IRGC launchers are themselves designed to blend into civilian traffic.
“Many of these launchers essentially resemble civilian vehicles or trailers,” he said.
He added that larger launchers for Khorramshahr missiles can be covered with a white casing that makes them look like an ordinary white civilian trailer, while the towing vehicle is also typically white.
Smaller launchers, he said, are often painted not in conventional camouflage but in ways that make them less conspicuous in civilian surroundings.
That observation fits closely with the document’s emphasis on cover, concealment and post-launch disappearance. The combination of disguised launch vehicles and preidentified civilian sites suggests an operational doctrine built around blending missile units into non-military space.
According to Nadimi, this has direct consequences under the laws of war.
“The use of civilian environments, structures and buildings for this purpose is unlawful under the laws of war,” he said. “It removes the protection those buildings would otherwise have and turns them into legitimate military targets.”
The danger, he added, is that civilians living or working in such places may have no idea a missile launcher is being hidden in their vicinity until they themselves are exposed to attack.
An organized doctrine, not an exception
The leaked directive therefore appears to document something broader than the existence of underground missile facilities or dispersed launch sites.
It points to an organized method for extending missile operations into the civilian sphere – using industrial buildings, service facilities, sports complexes, warehouses and other non-military spaces as part of a launch architecture designed to survive surveillance, evade detection and preserve firing capability under wartime pressure.
In that sense, the document is not just about positions where missiles are launched from. It is about how a military force can fold launch operations into everyday civilian geography – and in doing so, transfer the risks of missile warfare onto places and people that outwardly have nothing to do with it.
