FEBRUARY 2024

IRAQ TODAY
People hold photos of a child killed in the Iranian strikes at the house of Peshraw Dizayi during a protest in front of the
U.N. office in Irbil, Iraq, on Jan. 16, 2024. Dizayi, a prominent Kurdish businessman, was killed in one of the Irbil strikes
along with members of his family.
Iran-Iraq Tensions Escalate
Iraq recalls ambassador, summons Iran’s
chargé d’affaires over strikes in Irbil
BY SALAR SALIM AND OMAR ALBAM (AP)
IRBIL, Iraq (AP)
Iraq recalled its ambassador from
Tehran for consultations and summoned
Iran’s chargé d’affaires in
Baghdad on Tuesday in protest over
Iranian strikes on northern Iraq that
killed several civilians overnight, the
Iraqi Foreign Ministry said.
The Iranian attack was “a blatant
violation” of Iraq’s sovereignty and
“strongly contradicts the principles of
good neighborliness and international
law, and threatens the security of the region,”
the ministry said in a statement.
Iran fired missiles late Monday at
what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters”
in an upscale neighborhood
near the sprawling U.S. Consulate
compound in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s
northern semi-autonomous Kurdish
region, and at targets linked to the extremist
Islamic State group in northern
Syria.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in
a statement Tuesday that it launched
four missiles at IS positions in Syria’s
Idlib province and 11 missiles at
the Kurdish region in northern Iraq,
where it said it hit a center of Mossad,
the Israeli intelligence agency.
Qassim al-Araji, the adviser for national
security affairs to Iraq’s Prime
Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani
who is heading a committee investigating
the attack in Irbil, said Iran’s
“claims of targeting a Mossad headquarters
are baseless.”
“There is no reason for these attacks
and there is no excuse,” Masrour
Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish
region, said in a news conference
in Davos while attending Tuesday the
World Economic Forum. “These attacks
should not remain without a response.”
The strikes came at a time of heightened
tensions in the region and fears of
a wider spillover of the ongoing war in
Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
They also came after the Islamic
State 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 284 others at the ceremony
honoring Revolutionary Guard Gen.
Qassem Soleimani.
Iranian state media quoted Gen.
Hassan Hassanzadeh, one of the commanders
of the Revolutionary Guard,
as saying that Monday’s strikes were
a response to a demand made by the
country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
He added they will continue their
“action” until “the enemies regret”
what they did.
Also on Tuesday, Iran launched
attacks, using missiles and drones,
targeting what it described as bases
for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, a
Sunni militant group largely operating
across the border in nuclear-armed
Pakistan, state-run IRNA news agency
said. Those reports were then suddenly
removed without explanation.
Pakistan did not immediately acknowledge
the attack.
Last month, Iran accused Israel of
killing a high-ranking Iranian general,
Seyed Razi Mousavi, in an airstrike on
a Damascus neighborhood.
It was unclear whether the strikes
PHOTO BY JULIA ZIMMERMANN / METROGRAPHY / AP
in Syria had, in fact, hit any targets associated
with the Islamic State group.
Mounir al-Mustafa, deputy director
of the civil defense in northwest Syria,
also known as the White Helmets, said
one of the strikes in Idlib targeted a
medical clinic that was no longer operating
in the village of Talteta in northwest
Idlib province. Two civilians suffered
minor injuries, he said.
Sami al-Qassim, who lives near the
targeted site, said the clinic was empty
and there were no militant activities in
the area.
The Iranian strike in Irbil killed at
least four people, among them Peshraw
Dizayi, a prominent local businessman
with a portfolio that included real estate
and security services companies,
along with members of his family.
The United States condemned
what State Department spokesperson
Matthew Miller described as “Iran’s
reckless missile strikes.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Nasser Kanaani said in a statement
that the strikes in Iraq and Syria
were “in line with the resolute defense
of the country’s sovereignty and security,
countering terrorism, and part
of the Islamic Republic’s punishment
against those who threaten the country’s
security.”
He said that Iran in “a precise
and targeted operation, identified the
headquarters of the criminals and targeted
them with accurate and precision-guided
projectiles.”
A few hundred demonstrators
gathered in Irbil on Tuesday to protest
the attacks.
In northwest Syria, a missile strike
Tuesday morning hit an area housing
teenage detainees at the Sinaa prison in
the city of Hassakeh, where hundreds
of IS fighters are jailed. The U.S.-backed
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces,
which operates the prison, said the
strike caused minor injuries and sparked
an unsuccessful prison break attempt.
SDF spokesman Siamand Ali told
The Associated Press that “we have no
specific information on who was behind
the attack.”
Albam reported from Taltela, Syria.
Associated Press writers Qassim
Abdul-Zahra and Abdulrahman Zeyad
in Baghdad, Abby Sewell and Bassem
Mroue in Beirut, and Amir Vahdat in
Tehran, contributed to this report.
14 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2024