The US-designated terrorist organization of Iranian Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for a series of missile attacks targeting capital of Kurdistan Region, Erbil, overnight between Saturday and Sunday.
The Kurdistan Regional Government counter-terrorism units said that the 12 missiles were launched at 1:30 a.m.
“The attacks resulted in no casualties, and the missiles were launched from outside of Kurdistan and Iraq,” the units said in a statement.
Hours later Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has confirmed that they have carried out the attacks in retaliation for alleged Israeli attacks in Syria that killed two of their members last week.
Iran’s missiles struck near a large new US consulate currently being built in Erbil. However, Lawk Ghafari, the head of Kurdistan’s foreign media office, said none of the missiles had struck the facility but that areas around the compound had been hit.
Iranian media reported that the assaults targeted “intelligence bases of Israel.” The Kurdish officials, however, said that Israel has no base in the region.
The Kurdistan regional authorities said there were no civilian casualties as a result of the attacks. Masrour Barzani, the Prime Minister of the autonomous Kurdish region, condemned the attack.
Barzani said in a tweet on Sunday, "Erbil will stand strong against cowardly attacks. I strongly condemn the terrorist attack on Erbil and call on its resilient people to keep calm and follow the guidance of the security services."
Iran had previously carried out a series of rocket attacks against the US facilities in the Kurdish Region, some of them prepared by its proxies. It has also used ballistic missiles against the Kurdistan region in the past.
