Dubai/Baghdad –
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they have attacked the “espionage headquarters” of Israel in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, state media reported late on Monday, while the elite force also struck in Syria against the Islamic State.
“Ballistic missiles were used to destroy espionage centres and gatherings of anti-Iranian terrorist groups in the region late tonight,” Iran’s Guards said in a statement, naming Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
The Guards said they launched missile attacks against espionage centres and “gatherings of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” near Iraq’s northern city of Erbil, while targeting the “perpetrators of terrorist operations in the Islamic Republic, particularly the Islamic State.”
Explosions were heard in an area some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Erbil in the Kurdistan region, three security sources said, in an area near the U.S. consulate as well as civilian residences.
No U.S. facilities were impacted by the missiles strikes, two U.S. officials told Reuters.
Reuters could not independently verify any of the reports. Israeli government officials were not reachable for immediate comment.
Iraqi security sources said one rocket had fallen on the house of a senior Kurdish intelligence official and another on a Kurdish intelligence centre. Three had crashed into a prominent Kurdish businessman’s home, the sources said, killing him.
Four dead and several wounded civilians had been brought to a local hospital after the explosions, two medical sources said.
Air traffic at Erbil airport was halted, the security sources said.
Iran has in the past sometimes carried out strikes in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, saying the area is used as a staging ground for Iranian separatist groups as well as agents of its arch-foe Israel.
Baghdad has tried to address Iranian concerns over separatist groups in the mountainous border region, moving to relocate some members as part of a security agreement reached with Tehran in 2023.
Earlier this month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for two explosions in Iran’s southeastern Kerman city that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani.
