SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Friday it would not hesitate to strike other “Israeli bases” in the Kurdistan Region if its officials do not dismantle them.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched 12 missiles toward Erbil city last week. It said on its website that it had attacked an “Israeli spy center” in Erbil.
Kurdish officials denied the IRGC’s claims saying the attack hit a civilian area in Erbil, wounding one person.
“If Iraqi officials do not take action to remove other bases of the Zionists in that country while our security continues to be threatened from this region, we will respond without hesitation,” IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif said, according to Fars news agency.
“It is our natural right to destroy any base from which any attack is carried out against the security of Iran, and this is a redline for us,” he added.
The missile attack came several days after Iran said it would retaliate for an Israeli strike near Damascus, Syria, that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guards.
On Monday, spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said Tehran had warned Iraqi and Kurdish authorities many times that its territory should not be used by third parties to conduct attacks against the country.
“The central government of Iraq has the responsibility to ensure that its territory is not used as a base for attacks by third parties against Iran,” Khatibzadeh said in a press conference.
“Several times in the past, Iraq’s territory was used against Iran by third parties including terrorist groups such as Kurdish militants, the United States and the Zionist entity,” he added, referring to Israel.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said the attack only targeted civilian residential areas, not sites belonging to foreign countries, and called on the international community to carry out an investigation.
“The cowardly attack on Erbil … allegedly under the pretext of hitting an Israeli base near the US Consulate in Erbil, targeted civilian locations and its justification is only to hide the disgracefulness of such offense,” presidency of the KRG Council of Ministers said in a statement.
“We reiterate that the propaganda of the perpetrators of this attack is far from true.
“Iran has repeated these attacks many times, and the silence of the international community in the face of these cowardly attacks will pave the way for their continuation,” it added.
“We call on the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, the Arab League, the federal government, the Iraqi parliament, and the Iranian government to urgently investigate these baseless attacks, visit targeted locations, reveal the facts to the public, and take a true and strong stance on these attacks.”
