IRANIAN CLAIMS ON MISSILE STRIKE REJECTED BY BARZANI
▶ Iraqi Kurdistan leader tells The National he has no idea why Tehran launched attack on Erbil
The Prime Minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan region has rejected Tehran’s claims that Iranian missiles struck an “Israeli spy base” in the city of Erbil on Monday night.
Masrour Barzani said that innocent civilians had died in the blast. He called for support from the international community and a full investigation after a series of explosions.
Mr Barzani said his government has no role in a conflict that is threatening to spread from the Israel-Gaza war across the region.
Projectiles struck an upmarket district in the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where the US consulate is located.
The blasts killed businessman Peshraw Dizayee, his two children, aged 11 months and 18 months, and two other people, local media reported.
Iran claimed it hit an “Israeli spy base”, which Mr Barzani and Iraq’s federal government in Baghdad said was false.
Speaking in Davos, where the World Economic Forum is being held this week, Mr Barzani said he was at a loss as to why Tehran had struck Erbil.
“Perhaps you can ask them – because so far all we have seen are innocent civilians that have been targeted by the Iranians,” he said. He was due to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron and Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani later.
Mr Barzani told The National an inquiry was continuing.
“The Iraqi government has already issued a statement to condemn the attack. There is an investigation team already in Erbil,” he said. “They have indicated that they might take this to the National Security [Council] and we will see what the results of the investigation will be.
“We hope that the federal government in Iraq and the international community will take all of the measures necessary to stop the repetition of these attacks in the future.”
Iraqi Kurdish officials yesterday repeated calls for an air-defence system after Iran launched missiles at northern Iraq, killing five civilians on Monday night.
Tehran also hit areas of Syria outside the control of President Bashar Al Assad, regional sources said.
“We have asked for a defence system and federal and international support to bring this continuous violation and attacks to an end,” a Kurdish official told The National. “It will take time.”
He added that Erbil encouraged the instalment of “any system that protects the skies of the Kurdistan region from drones and missiles”.
Local media reported yesterday that civil defence teams in Erbil were still working to rescue a woman from under the rubble, while “heavy damage” was reported on the road connecting Erbil and the town of Pirmam.
Two children were among those killed in the missile attacks, officials said.
Last month, the US Congress passed a bill that included equipping the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi government forces with air-defence systems. The 2024 National Defence Authorisation Act is now waiting for US President Joe Biden’s signature.
“It won’t be easy to get, but we need this urgently,” said the Kurdish official.
The strikes occurred amid rising tensions between the US and Iran’s proxy militias in the Middle East over the IsraelGaza war.
The militias have increased attacks against US and Israeli forces from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
The Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Air Defence systems are in high demand.
In July, a senior US commander involved in air defence said capacity was stretched amid a series of global emergencies.
Those include protecting US and South Korean forces from possible North Korean attacks and protecting US bases in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the US has donated or sold Patriot systems and their missiles to Ukraine and Israel.
Each interceptor costs about $3 million.
Jordan has also requested the US use Patriot air defences to protect the kingdom, amid concerns of regional escalation.
Erbil is controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a Kurdish armed group allied with the US.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees Tehran’s proxies abroad, claimed it had hit a base hosting US military personnel and an Israeli Mossad headquarters in Erbil.
It said the attacks in Iraq’s Kurdish region, which consists of three provinces, were also aimed at “destroying anti-Iranian terrorist groups”.
An official in Baghdad said he could not “understand how Tehran could conduct such a heinous act”.
Last month, Israel killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Razi Mousavi in a strike near Damascus, Iranian media reported, as it increased its air raids on Tehran-linked targets in Syria.
Iran is a main backer of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that sparked the war in Gaza with a surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry denounced the attack on Erbil as “aggression against the sovereignty of Iraq and the security of the Iraqi people and harming good-neighbourly relations and the security of the region”.
The Iraqi government will file a complaint about the attack to the UN Security Council, it added.
Under Iraq’s sectarian quotas, Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein is Kurdish.
He is also a veteran KDP member, while the rest of Iraq’s government mostly comprises pro-Iranian politicians.
The IRGC said Monday’s attacks in northern Syria were aimed at ISIS and other militant groups.
KDP leader and former president of the Kurdish region Masoud Barzani said Iran’s claims of a Mossad presence in the area were “baseless”.
“My message to the perpetrators of last night’s missile and drone attack: There is no pride in murdering civilians, you can kill us, but rest assured that the will of the people of Kurdistan shall remain unwavering,” he said.
Meanwhile, opposition sources in Syria said that several Fateh 110 missiles had been fired from Latakia, a coastal region controlled by the Fourth Division, a Syrian army unit under the command of Mr Al Assad’s brother Maher.
There is no pride in murdering civilians, but rest assured that the will of the people of Kurdistan shall remain unwavering MASOUD BARZANI
KDP leader
It is a bitter irony that Iraq’s Kurdistan region – the most stable part of the country – was among the Iraqi and Syrian territories hit by Iranian forces in Monday night’s ballistic missile attacks that claimed at least five civilian lives. This centre of relative stability has been struck in attacks before and it will endure, but such a worrying escalation with the targeting of civilian homes with ballistic missiles, at a time of extreme regional volatility poses a serious question: what can be done to stop it?
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Kurdistan region’s capital of Erbil and in northern Syria. The Iranians claimed targets included a base hosting US military personnel and a “Mossad headquarters”; the IRGC said it was aiming for ISIS and other militant groups in Syria, according to comments carried by state media. The Iranian government has been searching for a way to respond to the Israeli assassinations of IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah figures in addition to the ISIS attack in Kerman that killed nearly 100 people.
However, just as Israel’s campaign of cross-border strikes and assassinations are particularly reckless at a time when the region teeters on the brink of wider conflict, the same is true of the IRGC’s violent agenda. American forces have contributed to this volatile mix as well, with drone strikes on targets across the region seeding anger in many Arab populations.
It is in no one’s interests for further escalation to take place, and although those who plan and execute such strikes may think they are taking part in a clinical, retaliatory war, the risk is that their operations provoke a reaction that cannot be contained. An example of this is Gaza, where Hamas’s October 7 attacks sparked a chain reaction that is still playing out, with incredible suffering for Gazans, in addition to the Red Sea where Iranaligned Houthi rebels have started an international crisis with their attacks on shipping. Civilians are dying and bearing the brunt of all these attacks.
Regional governments and organisations, as well as the wider international community, seem largely unable to contain this deadly game of cat and mouse, and must do better. Although the issue of Palestine is somewhat tangential to this shadowy conflict involving Israel, Iran, its proxies and extremist militants, ending the current Israeli operation in Gaza – thereby removing the issue as a driver of conflict – would be a welcome first step. China’s recent proposal to convene an international peace conference – and its support for a two-state solution – is an intervention worth examining given the paucity of solutions coming from the international community.
But as governments, militants and proxies continue to use Iraq and Syria, as well as long-suffering Lebanon and Yemen, as a chessboard upon which to pursue regional ambitions and vendettas, the number of near misses, such as that seen in Iraq and Syria on Monday night, continue to grow. The danger posed by supposedly surgical strikes is that they can end up killing the patient.