Iran's bombardment of Kurdish opposition is its biggest operation in Iraq in the last 10 years
Challenged internally by a wave of anti-regime demonstrations, Iran is projecting the crisis and violence beyond its territory. On Wednesday, September 26, Iran launched a series of cross-border attacks in northern Iraq against the offices and bases of Iranian Kurdish parties based in the neighboring country. This operation was in retaliation for their open support for the protest movement which arose after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish origin who died on September 16 after being arrested by the Iranian "morality police."
If the attack was expected and feared after five days of threats by Tehran against the Iranian Kurdish parties, its intensity is unprecedented. This is the biggest operation carried out by Iran on Iraqi soil in the last 10 years.
These raids resulted in "13 dead – including a pregnant woman – and 58 wounded, mostly civilians, including children under 10," according to an announcement in the early evening by the anti-terrorist services of Iraqi Kurdistan, which mentioned "more than 70" bombardments, carried out by "ballistic missiles" and "armed drones."
An elementary school hit
"Iranian refugees, including women and children," were reportedly among the victims, the Iraq branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a tweet, referring to a camp in Koi Sanjaq, east of Erbil. "The attack is alleged to have hit an elementary school where there were students." Three journalists from the Iraqi Kurdish television station K24 were also injured.
Iranian state television said that "the ground forces of the Revolutionary Guards [the Islamic Republic's ideological army][had] targeted several headquarters of separatist terrorists in northern Iraq with precision missiles and weaponized drones." In recent days, Iranian artillery fire had repeatedly targeted border areas of Iraqi Kurdistan north of Erbil, without so far causing significant damage.
The attack, which began at 10 am and consisted of three waves of strikes over several hours, targeted the two main Iranian Kurdish groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), and the Komala Party, as well as a base of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (KFP) in the governorates of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah – two regions controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the governing body of the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
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'Provocative' actions
Earlier in the afternoon, the US military's Middle East Command (Centcom) announced that it had shot down an Iranian drone heading toward Erbil that "appeared to be a threat to Centcom forces" deployed as part of the international anti-jihadist coalition.
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