Iran has claimed responsibility for missile strikes near the US consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
The Revolutionary Guards said they targeted “spy headquarters and the gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” in the area. The attack saw ten missiles raining down, killing four civilians and injuring six others. The security council of the Kurdish regional government confirmed the casualties. The dead include prominent local businessman Pershraw Dizayi and his family members.
Another rocket hit the house of a senior Kurdish intelligence official, and a third struck a Kurdish intelligence centre. Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called the missile strikes a “crime against the Kurdish people.”
No US facilities were struck or damaged, according to a US official. The new US consulate building and the US troop base in Erbil International Airport appeared unharmed. However, an anonymous official with an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia told the Associated Press that ten missiles launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fell in the affluent area near the sizeable new consulate.
The US had tracked the missiles, and initial indications found they were “reckless and imprecise,” said a US defence official who spoke to the outlet anonymously to discuss not yet public details.
Iran said it struck the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency in a statement claiming responsibility for the strikes. The Guards said in a statement, “In response to the recent atrocities of the Zionist regime, causing the killing of commanders of the Guards and the Axis of Resistance… one of the main Mossad espionage headquarters in Iraq’s Kurdistan region was destroyed with ballistic missiles.”
In a separate but concurrent attack, the Guards said they also struck “terrorist operations,” including Islamic State targets in Syria, “and destroyed them by firing several ballistic missiles.” Iran had vowed to avenge the killing of three Guards members who were serving as military advisors in Syria last month.
The missile attacks come amid increasing concerns that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza could spill over into other parts of the region as tensions grow between each side’s allies.
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