Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed it had hit an Israeli “spy headquarters” in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region with a number of missiles, as it continued its support for Hamas.
Jerusalem did not comment on the attack but it immediately hiked up fears that the war in Gaza could spread to the entire Middle East.
And US President Joe Biden’s administration was quick to condemn the attack, which according to the Kurdistan Region Security Council left four people were killed and six wounded.
Adrienne Watson, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement: “We will continue to assess the situation, but initial indications are that this was a reckless and imprecise set of strikes.
“The United States supports the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Iraq.” She added that no US personnel or facilities were targeted.
But a furious Iraq also denounced the attacks – which took place on Monday – calling them a violation of its sovereignty.
And in a separate development, Kurdistan authorities said yesterday morning they had shot down three armed drones flying over Irbil airport, where US and international forces are stationed. Authorities did not provide information on damage or causalities.
But the Iranian strikes come amid rising tensions in the region since the war between Israel the Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas broke out in the Gaza Strip on 7 October.
The conflict has increasingly started to spill over to involve militias allied to Iran operating in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed that the attack on Iraq had successfully targeted “one of the main Mossad espionage headquarters in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region was destroyed with ballistic missiles”.
A statement added that it was “in response to the recent atrocities of the Zionist regime”.
Amid growing tensions, experts in the region pointed out that Iran has carried out missile attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan before, targeting what it said were sites used by Iranian separatist groups and agents of Israel.
The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masrour Barzani, condemned the latest attack on Irbil as a “crime against the Kurdish people”.
A prominent businessman, Peshraw Dizayee, was among four civilians killed, Mr Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party said.
The Revolutionary Guards also said they had targeted Islamic State (IS) group positions in Syria on Monday night.
Explosions were heard in the north-western city of Aleppo and its countryside, where “at least four missiles that came from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea” fell, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
The Revolutionary Guards said the strikes in Syria were in retaliation for this month’s suicide bombing that targeted crowds marking the anniversary of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani’s assassination by the US.
That attack in Kerman, in southern Iran, killed at least 94 people and wounded many more.
Elsewhere, Israel once again launched attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon yesterday once again raising fears of a regional escalation of the war.
