Tehran tests Biden with rocket attack on airbase

The Biden administration was facing an early challenge from Iran Tuesday, local time, after a rocket attack on a base in Iraqi Kurdistan killed a civilian contractor working for the US-led coalition.

It came on the same day that Iran said it would block snap inspections of its nuclear programme by international experts if US sanctions were not lifted by February 21.

Three 107mm rockets hit the base in Arbil, capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, on Monday night, with at least 11 more striking civilian areas around it. The Arbil base is one of three still housing coalition forces in Iraq.

The attack was claimed by a shadowy new militia organisation in Iraq that is widely believed to be a front for factions allied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

‘‘The US occupying force will not be safe even if the traitor Kurdistan Regional Government welcomes it,’’ Saraya Awliya alDam, or Brigades of the Guardians of Blood, said.

A similar attack in December 2019 led to President Donald Trump ordering bombing raids on bases in western Iraq held by Iranian-backed militias. He then authorised the assassination in

January last year of Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top general, who co-ordinated the activities of all its proxy militias in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

President Biden has promised a more conciliatory approach to Iran than his predecessor, saying that he will rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal which Trump scrapped and seek negotiations on other issues including Tehran’s backing for militias across the region. The militias were threatening to broaden those attacks to Kurdistan in the weeks before Trump left office, and some analysts believe that Tehran ordered them to desist for fear of an overwhelming military response by the outgoing administration.

‘‘This attack is an unprecedented penetration of Kurdistan’s front line by militias and an extremely dangerous step, putting at risk hundreds of civilians at the impact points,’’ said Michael Knights, an Iraq analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The nationality of the contractor killed on Monday has not been given, other than that he was not Iraqi or American. Posts on local social media claimed he was from Syria’s Kurdish enclave, Rojava. A coalition spokesman said that nine people were injured, including an American serviceman. –