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Iran Threatens Response If U.S. Targets Drones Used In Campaign Against Kurds In Iraq
A man and woman hold up a banner depicting the image of Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities, during a demonstration denouncing her death by Iraqi and Iranian Kurds outside the UN offices in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, on September 24.
Iran has threatened retaliation against the United States if it targets drones that Tehran has been using to attack Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
Since September 23, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been using drones in deadly attacks targeting the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Irbil, and the eastern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah.
Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff for the Iranian armed forces, was quoted as saying that Iran would consider any U.S. response to Iranian drones as a "hostile action" and reserved the right to respond.
U.S. Central Command said on September 28 that it downed an Iranian drone on its way to Irbil, adding that the drone appeared to pose a threat to U.S. personnel in the region.
Washington confirmed on September 30 that an American was killed in the attacks the day before.
"We can confirm that a U.S. citizen was killed as a result of a rocket attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan region" on September 29, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said, declining to provide further details but reiterating U.S. denunciations of the strikes.
"We continue to condemn Iran's violations of Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Patel told reporters.
Iraq's state news agency said the attacks had killed least 13 people and wounded 58 others.
The attacks have been carried out against Kurdish political parties, as well as an Iranian Kurdish refugee camp, while a senior member of Komala, an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters that several of its offices had been struck as well. The attacks come amid massive protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, who died while in custody after being arrested by the so-called morality police for allegedly wearing an Islamic headscarf, or hijab, improperly.
The protests started in Amini's hometown of Saghez in Iran's Kurdistan Province and quickly spread to dozens of cities and towns across Iran.
The IRGC attacks started after security forces in the city of Oshnavieh in West Azarbaijan Province temporarily lost control of the city and the soldiers stationed there were on the defensive.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said it would summon the Iranian ambassador to voice Iraq's opposition to the attacks, which Baghdad considers to be a violation of its sovereignty.
The IRGC said in a statement that it would continue to target "terrorists" in the region.
(c) Radio Free Europe 2022
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