Iran’s missile and drone attacks on Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraq

Iran also targeted these groups in September. As a result, more than a dozen people were killed in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq.

“Five Iranian missiles targeted a building used by the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran” in Monday’s attacks, Tariq al-Haidari, mayor of Ko Sanjaq city in Iraqi Kurdistan, told AFP. “

Autonomous Kurdistan’s health ministry said the attack “killed one person and wounded eight.” They were all Iranian Kurds.” In videos shared on social media, smoke can be seen rising from the scene in the mountainous region of Kurdistan after the Iranian attack.

Atta Seqzai, the leader of the Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komla, said that in another drone attack, the Iranian Communist Party and Komla were targeted in Zarguiz region. He added that the Kurdish groups had been warned of the attack and that the groups had evacuated their hideouts, so “no one was killed or injured.”

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry later “strongly condemned” the Iranian attacks, saying there had been a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.

“We hit targets near the border and 80 kilometers away from the border with missiles and drones,” General Mohammad Taqi Osanlu, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, confirmed the attacks. He said that those who were targeted were “terrorists and were quite active in rioting for the past few months.”

Protests have been ongoing across Iran since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman in the custody of Iran’s morality police in mid-September. Police say they arrested a woman named Mehsa Amini for allegedly violating the hijab law.

Speaking on state television, General Osinlu warned that more attacks would be launched if Iraqi Kurdish authorities did not expel Iranian Kurdish groups. “We have already requested the local government to intervene, but it has not done anything,” he added. Iran’s foreign ministry argues that the fresh cross-border military operation was necessary to “protect security” in Iranian territory.

The United Nations Mission in Iraq has condemned these attacks. He said in a statement that these fresh missile and drone attacks by Iran are a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

“Iraq cannot be allowed to be used as a battlefield to settle accounts with others. Its territorial integrity and sovereignty must be respected,” the statement said. The US also called the Iranian action a “blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “We urge Iran, which has repeatedly and openly violated Iraq’s sovereignty, to cease attacks and further threats to Iraq’s regional security. Avoid it.”