At least 13 people were killed and around 50 injured, including women and children, on Wednesday in Iraqi Kurdistan, in Iranian strikes targeting armed groups of the Iranian Kurdish opposition, which denounces the repression of demonstrations in the Republic Islamic.
A previous report had reported at least nine dead and thirty wounded.
The Iraqi federal government and the regional power of autonomous Kurdistan, in the north of the country, condemned several missile strikes and others carried out, according to Baghdad, by “20 drones loaded with explosives”.
Claimed by Tehran, these bombings left “13 dead – including a pregnant woman – and 58 injured, mostly civilians, including children under ten”, announced in the early evening the counter-terrorist services of Iraqi Kurdistan . They spoke of “more than 70” bombardments carried out by “ballistic missiles” and “armed drones”.
At a hospital in Erbil, capital of the autonomous region, an AFP photographer saw men, mostly in fatigues, carried on stretchers after being evacuated from bloodstained ambulances.
“Iranian refugees, including women and children”, would be among the victims, deplored the Iraq branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Twitter, referring to a camp affected in Koysinjaq, on the east of Erbil. “The attack would have hit a primary school where students were,” the agency lamented.
Three journalists from Iraqi Kurdish television K24 were also injured.
Iraqi Kurdistan hosts several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups that historically have waged an armed insurgency against Tehran, although in recent years their activities have been on the decline.
However, they remain very critical on social networks on the situation in Iran, sharing videos on the protest movement which broke out in mid-September in the Islamic Republic after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested by the morality police.
” Threatens “
With American forces deployed as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition, the American military command for the Middle East (Centcom) announced that it had shot down an Iranian drone heading towards Erbil in the afternoon and which “appeared to be a threat to CENTCOM forces”.
In Iran, state television claimed that “the ground forces of the Revolutionary Guards [l’armée idéologique de la République islamique] targeted several headquarters of separatist terrorists in northern Iraq with precision missiles and destructive drones”.
In recent days, Iranian artillery fire had repeatedly targeted border areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, without causing significant damage.
These strikes come in a tense context in Iran, where nocturnal demonstrations have taken place daily since the death of Mahsa Amini.
Senior officials in Tehran have also linked these bombings to the “riots” in Iran.
Quoted on Tuesday by the Tasnim news agency, a senior official of the Revolutionary Guards, General Abbas Nilforoushan, spoke of elements “infiltrated” in Iran “to sow disorder”.
“These counter-revolutionary elements were stopped during riots in the northwest. So we had to defend ourselves, react and bombard the surroundings of the border strip,” he said.
“Indiscriminate bombings”
Wednesday’s strikes damaged and destroyed buildings in the Zargwez area, about 10 miles from Suleimaniyeh, where several Iranian Kurdish left-wing armed opposition parties are located.
An AFP correspondent in Zargwez saw plumes of white smoke rising from one of the sites hit by the strikes, where ambulances were dispatched.
The Sherawa region, south of Erbil, was also targeted by bombardment. “Premises of the Kurdistan Freedom Party have been targeted by Iranian bombardments,” an official of this Iranian opposition party, Hussein Yazdan, told AFP.
The Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran (PDKI), one of the groups targeted by the bombings in the Koysinjaq region, also reported two deaths in its ranks.
“We strongly condemn these continuous attacks which result in the death of civilians,” the autonomous Kurdistan government said.
Baghdad must summon the Iranian ambassador on Thursday to protest against these attacks.
Washington denounced “brazen attacks” on Iraq’s sovereignty, while London called on Tehran to “stop its indiscriminate bombardments” in Kurdistan. Berlin called this escalation “unacceptable”.