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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it used ballistic missiles to destroy an Israeli spy site in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region, according to state media, amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps said through its media arm early Tuesday local time that the “espionage headquarters” of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had been used to plan “terrorist” acts against Iran, claims Kurdish officials denied. The Israeli prime minister’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Revolutionary Guard said that the attack targeted several sites of Iranian opposition groups. Unfortunately, they 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.
Four people were killed and six wounded in the attack, the council said. 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 attack 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 dramatic escalation in recent weeks in which the United States carried out airstrikes on Iraqi soil targeting Iranian-backed militias linked to attacks on U.S. forces. The United States also struck Iran-aligned Houthi militants in Yemen, which the White House said was in retaliation for Houthi attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had warned the United States and its allies Monday against targeting Yemen.
U.S.-led coalition strikes Iran-aligned Houthi militants in 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, with Iran’s network of allied militias demonstrating the country’s proxy strength. American troops in Iraq and Syria have faced at least 131 attacks by Iranian-backed militias 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 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 Shia militants. No group immediately took responsibility for the failed attack.
Alex Horton contributed to this report.