Iran's revolutionary guards target ‘terror groups’ in Iraq's Erbil

No one was reported to be injured in the attack and no immediate damage was done to the property in the area

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps holding a military drill in the Sistan and Baluchestan province, south-east of the country. Handout from Iranian State TV IRIB. AFP

Iran’s revolutionary guards targeted “terrorist groups” with artillery fire on Wednesday morning in Iraq’s northern governorate of Erbil, Iranian state news agency Tasnim reported.

No one was injured in the attack and no immediate damage was done to the property in the area, according to head of the local administration of Sidakan, Ihsan Chalabi.

Mr Chalabi told local Kurdish outlets that shelling began at 8.20am local time in the Barbizen countryside of Sidakan Subdistrict in Choman.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, shelled the border areas of the Kurdistan region north-east of Erbil province, a local official told Kurdish media outlets.

In March, Iran attacked Erbil with a dozen ballistic missiles in an unprecedented assault on the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq. Only one person was hurt in that attack, which targeted the mansion of a businessman, Baz Karim, a prominent supporter of the locally powerful Kurdish Democratic Party.

A woman inspects damage in a children's room following an overnight attack in Erbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. All photos by AFP

Damage at a shop.

A man inspects the damage at his home.

The damaged studio at the Kurdistan 24 TV building.

Twelve missiles were fired early on Sunday, the state news agency and local leaders said.

A man cleans debris in the Kurdistan 24 TV building.

A damaged building after the overnight attack in Erbil. US officials, speaking to AFP, said the missiles came from Iran.

Ziryan Wazir rests at home after being wounded in the attack.

The IRGC said that the area targeted in March's attack was a base used by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, but a joint Iraqi-Kurdish inquiry into the incident concluded that Iran had no evidence to support the claim.

Iran has also previously launched ballistic missiles into the Kurdistan region and Iraqi Arab majority provinces in 2020, targeting joint US-Iraqi bases following the assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani.

Far more frequently, Iran has launched attacks against anti-Iranian regime Kurdish groups, most prominently the Kurdistan Free Life Party, commonly known by its Kurdish language acronym PJAK.

In September 2018, an Iranian ballistic missile attack destroyed PJAK headquarters in Koya, in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing 18 people.