AFP Tehran
Tehran
Updated Tuesday,16January2024 - 10:01
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they struck "terrorist" targets in Iraq and Syria with ballistic missiles, killing at least "four civilians" in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the authorities of this autonomous region.
The attacks come in a sensitive regional context as the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas has also sparked hostilities in the Red Sea between Yemen's Houthi rebels and the United States.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington "strongly condemns" and opposes "Iran's irresponsible missile strikes, which undermine Iraq's stability."
Iran's official IRNA news agency said the missiles targeted "an espionage headquarters" and "a congregation of anti-Iranian terrorist groups" in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdistan's Security Council said Tehran's action killed "four civilians and wounded six others."
According to the IRNA news agency, the spy headquarters belonged to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, which used it as a "center to develop espionage operations and plan terrorist actions in the region."
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The Iraqi Foreign Ministry condemned the shooting, denouncing an "attack on Iraq's sovereignty and the security of its people."
Following those attacks, Iraqi authorities "will take all legal measures" necessary, including "a complaint to the UN Security Council," according to a ministry statement.
The Revolutionary Guards also used ballistic missiles to attack "meeting places of commandos and elements related to the recent terrorist attacks, in particular by the Islamic State" in Syria, it said on its Sepah news website.
These actions were in "response to the recent crimes of terrorist groups that unjustly martyred a group of our beloved compatriots in Kerman and Rask," they added.
On January 3, suicide bombers detonated bombs near the grave in the southern city of Kerman of General Qasem Soleimani, responsible for numerous Iranian military operations in the Middle East and killed by the United States in Iraq on January 3, 2020.
The January 3 attack, claimed by IS, killed about 90 people and wounded many others.
Iran's intelligence ministry said one of the suicide bombers was a Tajik national, but said it did not know the identity of the other.
In December, at least 11 Iranian policemen were killed in a jihadist attack on the Raven police barracks in southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province.