Iran strikes targets in Iraq and Syria as regional tensions escalate

Iran launches strikes in Iraq, targeting a "spy headquarters" and anti-Iranian terrorist groups after missiles hit near the US consulate in Irbil, killing civilians.

Iran said late Monday, January 15, 2024, it had launched strikes against a “spy headquarters and gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” shortly after missiles hit an upscale area near the U.S. consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The security council of the Kurdish regional government said in a statement that four civilians were killed and six injured in the strikes.

Peshraw Dizayi, a prominent local businessman with a portfolio that included real estate and security services companies, was killed in one of the strikes along with members of his family, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by former Iraqi member of parliament Mashan al-Jabouri, who said that one of the missiles had fallen on Dizayi’s “palace, next to my house, which is under construction on the road to the Salah al-Din resort.”

Other regional political figures also confirmed Dizayi's death.

Soon after, a statement from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on state media said it had struck “terrorist operations” including Islamic State targets in Syria “and destroyed them by firing a number of ballistic missiles.” Another statement claimed that it had hit a headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility earlier this month for two suicide bombings targeting a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 U.S. drone strike. The attack in Kerman killed at least 84 people and wounded an additional 284 at a ceremony honoring Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Last month, Iran accused Israel of killing a high-ranking Iranian general, Seyed Razi Mousavi, in an airstrike on a Damascus neighborhood.