The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian armed forces, launched ballistic missiles at what it described as the “headquarters of spies” in Erbil, northern Iraq on Monday night. Ten missiles fell near the U.S. Consulate, Iraqi sources said.
“In response to the recent evil acts of the Zionist regime in martyring IRGC and resistance commanders, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, with its nobility and intelligence, targeted and destroyed one of the main headquarters of Israel’s spying agency Mossad in Iraq’s Kurdistan region by firing ballistic missiles,” the group said in a statement reported by Iran’s state news agency.
“This Mossad headquarters,” the statement continued, referencing Israel’s intelligence agency, “has been working for espionage operations and a center for terror attacks planning in the region, especially against our beloved country.”
Iraqi officials denied the building was related to Mossad.
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No U.S. facilities were impacted, U.S. officials said. An Iraqi security source told ABC News that no coalition or American forces were killed. However, at least four civilians were killed and six injured in the attack, according to the Kurdistan Regional Security Council. Iraqi news outlet Rudaw reported that 17 were injured and that the youngest victim was an 11-month-old baby who was killed just days before her first birthday.
Iraqi politician Mashan al-Jabouri wrote in a post on X that prominent Iraqi businessman Peshraw Dizayi and his family were among those killed by one of the missiles, which landed on Dizayi’s “palace.”
ABC News reported that coalition forces also shot down three drones near Erbil airport—the latest in increasing drone attacks in the area, where U.S. and other international forces are stationed. Air traffic at the airport has been suspended, the airport confirmed to Rudaw.
In a statement condemning the attack in Erbil on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said the strikes were “reckless” and “undermine Iraq’s stability.”
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Iraqi Kurdish governor Omed Khoshnaw told reporters that Monday’s strikes were “a terrorist attack” and “an humane act.” “Erbil will not be scared or shaken,” he said.
Iraq recalled its ambassador from Tehran and summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad on Tuesday over the Iranian strikes, the Associated Press reported.
The IRGC also launched a separate missile attack that struck targets in Syria, the group said in a statement on Monday. That attack targeted those involved in the bombing in Kerman earlier this month that killed at least 94 people as well as in an attack on a police station in Rask.
The strikes come amid escalating tensions in the Middle East since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, which has led to proxy conflicts between each side’s allies—notably between the U.S., which backs Israel, and Iran, which supports Hamas. Iran’s allies in the region, particularly the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have in recent months launched dozens of attacks targeting ships in the strategic Red Sea bound for Israel. The U.S. and U.K. launched a major retaliation against Yemen’s Houthis last week, in what some fear could spiral into a wider regional war.
