These twelve missiles fired out of Iraq, on the side of the border with Iran according to the Kurds security forces, did not do victims.
Le Monde
Shots of “missiles” targeted, Sunday, March 13 before dawn, Erbil, capital of autonomous Kurdistan in the Kurdish North of Iraq. The attack was conducted with “twelve ballistic missiles drawn from an Erbil district and aimed at the American consulate” according to a statement of the Kurdistan Anti-Terrorism Unit. “The missiles have been drawn outside the borders of Iraq and Kurdistan, [coming] more precisely from the country.
Iraq shares its long border in the east with Iran, which enjoys a unavoidable role both politically and economically at its Iraqi neighbor.
“There are no human losses, only material damage,” adds the press release. For its part, a spokesman for the US State Department assured that there was “or damage or victim in any of the US government’s facilities”.
The city airport, where there is a base of the international coalition antidjihadists, informed not to have suffered damage, ning any interruption of flights.
The local Kurdistan24 television channel, whose studios are not far from new local consulate, has published on its social networks images of its damaged offices, with collapsed sides of false ceiling and broken glass.
Pictures Show Damage to Kurdistan 24 Office in Erbil After Missile Attack Nearby. https://t.co/v7fykdhh5j
– k24english (@kurdistan 24 English)
A context always tense
These shots against Erbil intervene nearly a week after the death in Syria of two grades of the guardians of the revolution, ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, killed in an attack attributed to Israel. “The Zionist regime (Israel] will pay for this crime,” said Tuesday, the guards in a statement.
This Sunday attack also occurs at the moment when the Iranian nuclear negotiations, about to succeed, have been brutally suspended, following new requirements of 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 sanctions that asphyxiate its economy.
But he dismissed in 2018 after Washington’s withdrawal, decided by Donald Trump, who restored his measures against Iran. In response, Iran has gradually freed the limits imposed on its nuclear program. The negotiations had taken over after Joe Biden’s election at the White House.
Strikes Never claimed
In Iraq, rocket fire or trapped drones, never claimed, regularly target American interests and troops of the International Anti-Djihadist Coalition in Iraq, where pro-Iran armed groups call for the departure of American soldiers.
The country had known at the beginning of the year a recrudescence of this type of attack. Iran and several allied groups in the region then commemorated the second anniversary of the death of General Iranian Qassem Soleimani and his lieutenant Iraqi Abou Mahdi al-Mohandes, killed by a US drone shot in Iraq in January 2020.
At the end of January, six rockets were shot at the Baghdad International Airport, without making any victims, the latest on a series of attacks generally charged by Washington with Pro-Iran Iraqi factions. In Erbil, the last attack of the genre in Erbil dates back to September, when “armed drones” targeted the airport.
These attacks also intervene in a post-electoral context tense, marked by endless negotiations to form a parliamentary coalition, elect a president and appoint a prime minister.
“Erbil under the fire of the losers”, reacted in a tweet the Chiite Moqtada Sadda Religious leader, a great winner of the October legislative laws, who saw the pro-Iran factions record a sharp decline.