The Iranian Revolutionary Guards fired ballistic missiles on Monday January 15 against targets in Syria and Iraq, which left at least four dead in Iraqi Kurdistan. These attacks are presented by Tehran as a response to the targeted assassinations carried out by Israel against senior executives of the “axis of resistance” – which brings together Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen – as well as the deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) organization in Kerman, Iran, on January 3. The scale of the response and the nature of the targets seem to confirm that Tehran is not seeking escalation with Israel and its American ally, in support of Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday evening, missiles fell in an upscale residential area on the outskirts of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, near the American consulate complex. The target was, according to Tehran, “the headquarters of the Zionist regime’s spies [le Mossad]». At least four civilians were killed and six others injured in the attack, authorities in the autonomous region said in a statement. The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which rules the autonomous region, said a real estate tycoon, Peshraw Dizayee, his wife and other members of his family were killed in one of the strikes.
According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA, the attack in Erbil comes in retaliation for the recent assassinations of several commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, but also of leaders of the “axis of resistance” to Israel. On December 25, 2023, Iranian General Reza Mousavi was killed in Damascus in a strike attributed to Israel. The Jewish state is also accused of being behind the elimination of Hamas number two, Saleh Al-Arouri, in the suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on January 2, as well as that of a senior commander of Lebanese Hezbollah , Wissam Tawil, January 8.
Summoned by the Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, to adopt a “firm position” against these “brutal attacks”the Baghdad authorities denounced a “aggression targeting the sovereignty of Iraq and the security of its people”. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the formation of a commission of inquiry to “prove the allegations to be false” of the perpetrators of these shootings. The authorities of Iraqi Kurdistan deny any relationship or desire for normalization with Israel – a crime in Iraq – but politicians from the autonomous region have been able to be favorable to it in the past.
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