Iranian Ballistic Missile Strike Kills Prominent Businessman In Iraqi Kurdistan
Paul Iddon
Senior Contributor
I write mostly about Middle East affairs, politics and history.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary directly attacked Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil, again with ballistic missiles just before midnight Monday local time.
The target was not, as initially speculated, the large new U.S. consulate or the American troop base in Erbil International Airport. IRGC missiles descended on the house of a well-known local businessman, killing him and members of his family. Explosions were heard throughout the city, alarming many residents.
The IRGC promptly claimed responsibility for the attack and a simultaneous strike on Syria. In Erbil, the powerful paramilitary claimed its missiles targeted a “Mossad headquarters” in retaliation for Israel’s prior assassination of IRGC members, claiming the target “was responsible for planning and running espionage operations and terrorist activities in the region.”
The Syria attack purportedly targeted the Islamic State, whose Afghan faction claimed responsibility for the deadly Jan. 3 terrorist attack on Iran’s southeastern Kerman province, which killed over 90 people.
forbes.com
Israel was the main destination for oil from Mosul in Kurdish Iraq where wells were pumped by the Kurds and Islamic State. |
