An American consulate in Iraq was targeted early this Sunday morning by missile fire in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. An attack claimed this Sunday noon by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who say they targeted a “strategic centerand threatening the Jewish state with new “destructive” operations. In the text, on their Sepah News site, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards claim that “the strategic center of Zionist conspiracy and vice had been targeted by powerful advanced missiles”.
“These are baseless allegations”Erbil Governor Oumid Khouchnaw assured a press conference on Sunday: “There are no Israeli sites in this area, only the new US consulate building.” The authorities of Iraqi Kurdistan had previously indicated that “12 ballistic missiles” drawn “outside the borders of Iraq, and more precisely of the East”had targeted the American consulate in Erbil on Sunday, without causing any casualties.
Two people were “slightly injured” by fire, according to the governor of Erbil, who specified that the missiles had mainly fallen “on empty land”. The local television channel Kurdistan24, whose studios are not far from new premises of the American consulate, published images of its damaged offices. A spokesman for the US State Department, for his part, assured that there was “no damage or casualty at any US government facility”.
Reprisals
To better understand the probable motive of this attack, it should be known that it takes place almost a week after the death in Syria of two high ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, killed in an attack attributed to Israel. “The Zionist regime will pay for this crime”, had promised, Tuesday, the Guardians. The shootings of the night would be similar to reprisals.
They are also part of a wave of rocket attacks or armed drones in Iraq since the beginning of the year, when Tehran and several allied groups commemorated the second anniversary of the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis, eliminated by Washington in a drone strike on Iraqi territory. “Iran has targeted the Kurdistan region on several occasions, and the lack of response from the international community is very worrying”the Kurdish authorities lamented on Sunday.
Sunday’s attack also comes as talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in Vienna were abruptly suspended, following new demands from Moscow. Concluded by Iran on one side, and the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany on the other, this pact was supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring the bomb atomic in exchange for the lifting of the sanctions which are suffocating its economy. But it crumbled in 2018 after Washington pulled out, reinstating its measures against Iran. In response, Tehran gradually freed itself from the limits imposed on its nuclear program.