Iran late on Monday fired missiles at what it claimed was an Israeli “spy headquarters” near the US consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the Islamic State group in northern Syria.
Four civilians were killed and six injured after missiles hit an upscale area near the consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the security council of the Kurdish regional government said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that it had hit a headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Another statement said that it had fired a number of ballistic missiles at “terrorist operations,” including Islamic State targets, in Syria and destroyed them.
Israel did not immediately acknowledge the attack in Irbil and its embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment on the Iranian allegation regarding Mossad.
The strikes come at a time of heightened tensions in the region and fears of a wider spillover of the ongoing war in Gaza.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7 last year, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have launched near-daily drone attacks on bases housing US forces in Iraq and Syria, which the groups have said was in retaliation for Washington’s support of Israel, and in an attempt to force US troops to leave the region.
The US strongly condemns “Iran’s reckless missile strikes” in Irbil, US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Miller said the attacks “undermine Iraq’s stability.”
A US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that had not been made public, said the US tracked the missiles, which hit in northern Iraq and northern Syria, and no US facilities were struck or damaged in the attacks.
The official said initial indications were that the strikes were “reckless and imprecise.”
However, the full extent of the damage from the strikes could not be independently assessed.
An Iraqi security official said Irbil was targeted with “several” ballistic missiles, but did not give further details.
An official with an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia said 10 missiles fell in the area near the US consulate. He said the missiles were launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Peshraw Dizayi, a prominent local businessman with a portfolio that includes real-estate and security-services companies, was killed in one of the Irbil strikes along with members of his family, said a post on social media by Mashan al-Jabouri, a former Iraqi lawmaker.
Al-Jabouri wrote that one of the missiles had fallen on Dizayi’s “palace, next to my house, which is under construction on the road to the Salah al-Din resort.”
Other regional political figures also confirmed Dizayi’s death.
Tehran in 2022 claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck in the same area near the sprawling US consulate complex in Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard.
Iran’s strike in northern Syria late on Monday came after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility earlier this month for two suicide bombings targeting a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 US drone strike. The attack in Kerman killed at least 84 people and wounded an additional 284 at a ceremony honoring Revolutionary Guard General Qasem Soleimani.
Iran last month accused Israel of killing a high-ranking Iranian general, Seyed Razi Mousavi, in an airstrike on a Damascus neighborhood.
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