Iraq condemned on Tuesday an “aggression” against its sovereignty after Iranian missile attacks on autonomous Kurdistan, Tehran defending a “targeted” operation targeting in particular a presumed Israeli intelligence site, in an explosive regional context.
These nighttime strikes, which killed “four civilians” in northern Iraq according to Kurdish sources, come against a backdrop of war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since October 7.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA announced that the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, had carried out an attack on the outskirts of Erbil, capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
According to her, ballistic missiles destroyed “a headquarters” from which Israel’s intelligence services operated – which did not immediately react to these accusations.
In Baghdad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “an aggression targeting the sovereignty of Iraq and the security of its people”.
He summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to give him a “protest missive” and recalled his ambassador to Tehran “for consultations”.
Iraq is already sucked in by regional tensions caused by the war in Gaza and which raise fears of a conflagration between the allies of the two camps.
Baghdad, a major ally of Tehran but also a partner of the United States, must engage in a balancing act: pro-Iran armed groups carry out attacks against American soldiers deployed in Iraq and Syria.
Israeli “spies”
The strikes in Erbil killed at least “four civilians” and injured six, according to the authorities.
Among the dead are a real estate tycoon, also the head of a company active in the hydrocarbon sector and private security, Peshraw Dizayee, and other members of his family: their homes were directly hit.
During the night, the Revolutionary Guards assured that they had destroyed one of the main headquarters of “spies of the Zionist regime (Mossad)”, according to Irna.
In charge of the investigation into the strikes, the Iraqi national security adviser, Qassem al-Aaraji, denounced on Tuesday “false allegations” concerning “the presence of an Israeli Mossad (foreign intelligence service, Editor’s note) HQ” in Erbil.
“We inspected the place, visited every corner of the house. Everything indicates that it is the house of a businessman,” assured Mr. Aaraji.
Iranian diplomacy defended a “precise and targeted operation”, ensuring that it had “identified” and “targeted” the headquarters of “criminals”. […] using precision weapons.
This attack comes in response to recent operations that eliminated Iranian or allied commanders – and the reprisals of the Revolutionary Guards “will continue until the last drop of the blood of the martyrs is avenged”, according to Irna.
On January 2 in Lebanon, a strike killed Hamas number two, Saleh al-Arouri, and six other officials and executives of the Palestinian movement. A few days later, Wissam Tawil, a senior military official of Lebanese Hezbollah, was killed.
At the end of December, Tehran also accused Israel of having eliminated in Syria Brigadier General Razi Moussavi, an important commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch and the elite Guardian unit.
“Terrorist operations”
If Iraq criminalizes any contact with Israel, politicians and businessmen in Erbil have already been accused of maintaining informal contacts with this country. But Kurdistan’s official line denies any connection with Israel.
The Prime Minister of Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, met Tuesday in Davos, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken.
The Iraqi official castigated “unjustified and illegal attacks”, calling on the international community “not to remain silent”, according to his services.
On Tuesday in Erbil, several hundred people demonstrated waving flags of the autonomous region.
Furthermore, the Revolutionary Guards announced on their Sepah News website that they had identified and destroyed in Syria “the gathering places of commanders and the main elements linked to recent terrorist operations, in particular the Islamic State”.
They explained that this attack was carried out in “retaliation for recent crimes by terrorist groups”, particularly in Kerman.
On January 3, a suicide attack was carried out there during a memorial ceremony near the tomb of General Qassem Soleimani, architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East, killed in January 2020 by an American strike in Iraq.
The attack, claimed by ISIS, left around 90 dead and many injured.