Illustrative image.
Late on June 8, a drone attack targeted the northern outskirts of the capital of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil, in northern Iraq.
The Directorate General of Counter Terrorism in Kurdistan said in a statement that a suicide drone landed near Erbil-Pirmam highway, wounding three people. Reuters and several other news agencies reported that the US new consulate in Erbil was the target of the drone attack. However, it was not hit.
Footage from the scene of the attack shows several damaged cars and what appears to be the wing of an Iranian KAS-04-type suicide drone.
Over the last two years, Kurdistan was the target of several drone attacks which were blamed on pro-Iranian factions in Iraq. The autonomous Kurdish region was also struck by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on more than one occasion.
On March 13, the IRGC launched a salvo of ballistic missiles at a complex near Erbil that it said had been used by Israeli intelligence agents. The missile strike was a response to the February 14 drone attack on Mahidasht Air Base in Iran’s Kermanshah, which was attributed to the Israeli intelligence.
Recently, Israel was blamed for two attacks that took place in Iran, the assassination of Quds Force Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari in Tehran and the explosion at Parchin military complex to the southwest of the Iranian capital.
The drone attack on Erbil may have been carried out by the IRGC or its allies in Iraq as a response to the two recent attacks in Iran.
