Iraq. Iranian drone strikes. They are killed and wounded

At least nine people were killed and 32 wounded in an Iranian drone strike against Iran’s Kurdish opposition in northern Iraq, the health ministry of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region said.

The target of the Iranian attack is Gujzandak, located in the north-east of the country. “A military base, houses and offices were attacked,” Soran Nouri, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), Iran’s outlawed Kurdish opposition group, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Iran’s IRNA agency reported that separatist groups in northern Iraq were fired upon by “precision missiles” and “kamikaze drones”.

Iran’s armed forces launched a campaign against Kurdish rebels last Saturday. Tehran accused Iranian Kurdish protesters of inciting the riots that erupted in the country on September 16 after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahza Amini in the custody of Iranian paramilitary police.

US military forces shot down an Iranian drone flying towards Erbil in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement. The drone posed a threat to US forces stationed nearby.

The US military has condemned Iranian attacks in the Kurdistan region, describing them as a “threat to innocent civilians and hard-won stability in the region”. CENTCOM also noted that “no U.S. personnel were injured or killed, and the attacks did not pose a threat to U.S. military equipment.”

CENTCOM operates in Iraq at the invitation of the Baghdad government to advise and assist in the fight against the Islamic State.

After the drone was found, US troops took over the F-15 fighter jet, CNN reported. A US official quoted by CNN described the incident as “very serious”.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry announced plans to invite the Iranian ambassador to the ministry to present him with an official complaint regarding attacks on the Kurdistan region.