IRAN WIDENS ITS TARGETS WITH STRIKE ON BALOCH MILITANT GROUP
▶ Tehran has fired missiles at Iraq, Syria and now Pakistan, claiming terrorists and Israeli agents were in its sights
Iran expanded its ballistic missile barrage across the wider Middle East yesterday, striking what it claimed were terrorist-linked targets in Pakistan. It came a day after Iran struck what it claimed were ISIS sites in north-eastern Syria and an Israeli Mossad site in Erbil, capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region. The Erbil attack killed a prominent businessman and his family.
Iran claimed the strikes were in retaliation for attacks it blamed on Israel and ISIS, while repeating an unsubstantiated claim that the two are linked.
The worst of those attacks was a double bombing that killed about 100 people in Kerman on January 3, which was claimed by ISIS.
The strike on Pakistan yesterday, which killed two children and injured four women, was aimed at Baloch group Jaish Al Adl, which Iran accused of taking part in an attack on a police station in the south of the country.
The attacks hit the home of two men involved in selling Iranian diesel, a Pakistani paramilitary militia commander told The National.
The Iranian strikes destroyed a family home in Iraq and a disused medical centre in Syria, Syria’s opposition emergency services group the White Helmets said, raising questions as to what Tehran was trying to achieve.
Tensions in the region are high amid an escalation in hostilities between a US-led international coalition and a host of Iranian proxy groups and allies, including Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militias, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and several Palestinian militant groups engaged in war with Israel.
What remains unclear is the reason for Iran’s strike that destroyed the Erbil home of Kurdish businessman Peshraw
Dizayee, who has been linked to the leading party in the Kurdish region of Iraq, the Kurdish Democratic Party.
The KDP has had a difficult relationship with Iran-backed groups in Baghdad, with ties between Baghdad and Erbil often coming close to breaking point over the Kurdish region’s independent exports of oil, which have now been halted by the federal government.
“There’s no genuine military justification for the strikes, so they were designed to send a message, it’s sabre rattling,” said Norman Ricklefs, who runs the Iraq-focused Namea consultancy.
“Moreover, the strikes were carefully targeted in the expectation that they would not cause a direct military response from the US. “But the strikes have also caused great anger in Iraq, which I don’t think the Iranians expected before they launched.”
Iran claimed Mr Dizayee’s house was a Mossad office, but his business empire has no apparent link to Israel, although his company’s website says it is involved in oil services, a crowded sector in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
The region previously exported oil to Israel, but has not done so since early last year, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank said.
The Erbil strike was similar to a 2022 Iranian missile attack on the residence of Baz Karim Barzanji, another Kurdish businessman linked to the KDP, in which a civilian was killed. Missiles were also fired at the US consulate, which was under construction at the time. Iran initially blamed the US and Israel for the January 3 bombings. Mr Dizayee’s home was several kilometres from the US consulate.
Iran has provided no evidence that the Kurdish region is used as a base by Mossad, but Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian persisted with the claim at the Davos forum yesterday.
As well as drawing an angry response from Iraq, the attacks have led Kurdish officials to repeat requests for US air defences, such as Patriot missile systems, which have a record of successfully shooting down ballistic missiles.
The Kurds could be waiting for some time, said Justin Bronk, a defence analyst at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, as US air defence systems are in high demand globally.
“I suspect that it is unlikely that Patriot could be deployed in response to KDP requests at this time due to global demand for the systems, trained crews and interceptor missile ammunition greatly outstripping available supply,” Mr Bronk said.
“The Pentagon is already struggling to supply a range of higher-priority demands from allied and partner countries for the systems, especially to maintain Ukrainian Patriot coverage against regular heavy missile attacks by Russia.”
These systems have shot down many Russian missiles in Ukraine and Iran-made missiles in the Middle East. Russia claims some of these missiles can travel in excess of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.
Iran has been keen to demonstrate its ballistic missile capability with an attack exceeding 1,200km in range.
Brig Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who commands the Aerospace Forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the Kheibar Shekan missiles used in the strikes have a range of 1,450km.
The strike on Pakistan, which killed two children and injured four women, was aimed at Baloch group Jaish Al Adl