Iran launched a dozen ballistic missiles late Saturday night at the Iraqi city of Erbil near an unoccupied US consulate under construction, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement released after the attack, the State Department said: “We condemn this disproportionate attack and display of force,” and confirmed that no US personnel or facilities had been damaged.
Lawk Ghafuri, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, confirmed that 12 missiles had hit Erbil and claimed that they were launched “from outside Iraq” and produced no casualties.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi stopped attributing the attack but condemned the “aggression that targeted the beloved city of Erbil and sowed fear among its residents.” He called it “an attack on the security of our people” and promised to investigate.
Social media users in Erbil posted clips of apparent rocket attacks in Erbil followed by major explosions. Kurdistan24, a local news channel with a studio near the site of the attack, also broadcast images of broken glass and damage in its offices near what the outlet said was a rocket attack.
Iran-backed militias’ media were quick to claim that the attack was carried out by Iran using Fateh-110 short-range missiles. Social media users in Iran also posted videos of what appeared rockets shoot through the sky in towns and cities near Iran’s border with Iraq.
Iran has not claimed responsibility for the attack, and semi-official Iranian news outlets have instead bolstered the claims of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Fars News, which is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, tweeted clips from Sabreen News, a popular Iranian-backed militia’s Telegram channel, which noted that surveillance camera footage showed the missiles hitting at 1:20 a.m., at the same time that missiles from a US drone hit Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January. 2020 killed. said the timing was “not coincidental at all”.
US attack kills Iran’s top military commander
Iran has twice launched ballistic missiles at Iraqi targets. In September 2018, the IRGC’s aerospace force launched short-range missiles at a facility of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, an armed separatist group that has called for an independent Kurdish homeland in Iran. In January 2020, Iran also attacked US forces with a ballistic missile attack on Al-Asad airbase in retaliation for the assassination of Soleimani.
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