The Revolutionary Guard Corps said the “espionage headquarters” of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had been used to plan “terrorist” acts against Iran, according to a statement released through its media arm early Tuesday local time. Kurdish officials deny the claims. The Israeli prime minister’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iranian forces “always use baseless excuses to attack Erbil,” the Kurdish Regional Security Council said in a statement, adding that the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan is a “stable region and has never been a threat to any party.”
“This is a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, and the federal government and the international community must not remain silent regarding this crime,” the council said.
Iraq recalled its ambassador from Tehran following the strikes, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday. The ministry also said Iran’s top diplomat in Baghdad had been summoned over the attack and was handed a “protest note.”
The Kurdistan regional parliament’s deputy speaker, Hemin Hawrami, identified the dead as an Iraqi businessman and his family. Condemning the attack, Masrour Barzani, Kurdistan’s prime minister, said on social media that he will work with international allies over the next few days “to stop these brutal attacks.”
The strike took place in an area on the outskirts of Irbil city near a U.S. Consulate building that is under construction. There is a U.S. Consulate inside the city that is operational.
The Iranian missile volley follows a series of escalatory attacks in recent weeks. Iran vowed to take revenge for the killing of a senior Revolutionary Guard officer in Syria last month. And also in December, the United States carried out airstrikes on Iraqi soil targeting Iranian-backed militant groups linked to attacks on U.S. forces.
The United States also struck another group with links to Iran — the Houthi militants in Yemen — which the White House said was in retaliation for their attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned the United States and its allies Monday against targeting Yemen.
Also on Tuesday, the Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched missiles against Islamic State militants in Syria, Iranian state media reported. That strike comes after a bomb attack in the Iranian city of Kerman, which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for, killed 95 people this month.
No U.S. personnel or facilities were targeted or damaged in Iraq or Syria, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States “strongly condemns Iran’s attacks in Erbil today and offers condolences to the families of those who were killed.”
“We oppose Iran’s reckless missile strikes, which undermine Iraq’s stability,” Miller said in a statement.
Tensions in the Middle East have grown since Hamas’s attack on Israel in October and the ensuing war in Gaza, with Iran’s network of allied militant groups demonstrating the country’s proxy strength. American troops in Iraq and Syria have faced at least 131 attacks by Iranian-backed militant groups since Oct. 17, according to Pentagon data. But the missile strikes early Tuesday are one of the rare times the Revolutionary Guard Corps has taken direct credit for an attack since Oct. 7.
In a separate incident on Tuesday, counterterrorism forces in Kurdistan said they shot down three “bomb-laden drones” attempting to target a U.S. military base near Irbil’s international airport, an area that has repeatedly been attacked by Iran-backed Shiite militants. No group immediately took responsibility for the failed attack.
Salim reported from Baghdad, Melnick from Washington and Masih from Seoul. Alex Horton in Washington contributed to this report.
