Tehran Targets Iranian Kurdish Opposition Parties in Iraq in Missile and Drone Attack, Killing 13

Iranian forces launched scores of ballistic missiles and explosive drones at the positions of Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region on Wednesday, killing 13 people and wounding 58, most of them civilians. The regional Kurdish Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) reported in a statement that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was responsible for the cross-border bombardment, which it carried out in four stages. The headquarters of Kurdish opposition parties in Barde and Koysinjaq in the Irbil Governorate, and in several areas of the neighboring Sulaymaniyah Governorate, were targeted. The statement from the CTS said that more than 70 Fateh ballistic missiles and booby-trapped drones were launched from the Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and West Azerbaijan and that they “targeted public places and civilian homes.” Iraq’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, referring to “the Iranian side’s artillery and rocket bombardment, which coincided with the use of 20 drones loaded with explosives that targeted four areas in Iraq’s Kurdistan region and resulted in many deaths and injuries,” and said it would summon the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad for an explanation. Iran’s Mehr News Agency said the IRGC “has once again targeted the positions of terrorist groups operating near the country’s western borders in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.”