Iran has carried out a deadly attack on Wednesday in northern Iraq - killing a US citizen while targeting Kurdish opposition parties.
The missile and drone strikes killed at least 13 people and wounded 58, including civilians and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Khalid Azizi, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), said two women, including one pregnant, died and several children had been badly wounded.
The 24-year-old woman's baby was extracted from her corpse and survived.
Hospitals have been on high alert, receiving lots of civilians as scores of people have been killed and injured.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been bombing Kurdish parties based on the border of the Kurdistan region of Iraq in recent days, but this was the first time this month that Iran's military escalated its campaign cross-border and targeted them inside northern Iraq.
A source in the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) said that a 59-year-old US citizen, Omar Mahmoudzadeh, was among those killed.
He was reportedly helping refugees in camps near the KDP-I headquarters in Erbil province.
The number of fatalities is expected to rise as the US Consulate General in Erbil issued a security alert as it continues to receive “reports of ongoing drone and rocket attacks by Iranian military forces” against Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region – statement.
The strikes targeted the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran in the Koysanjak district in Irbil, the Kurdish Komala Party in the village of Zarkwezela, in Sulaymaniyah province, and the Kurdistan Freedom Party in Kirkuk province.
Horrifying footage circulating on social media shows children screaming and running as the strike hit very close to a school.
Sardar Pakpour, the commander of Iran’s ground forces, has announced that at least 73 missiles have now been fired at Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
The missiles were fired at 42 targets, aiming to destroy Kurdish opposition groups inside of Iraqi Kurdistan and the IRGC pledged to continue targeting Kurdish groups.
The strikes come as nearly two weeks of protests in Iran have rocked the country. They started in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died after being detained by the country’s “morality police.”
Dozens of protesters have been killed and hundreds injured by police so analysts say the strikes in Iraq were an attempt to deflect attention away from the inside the borders of Iran.
The protests began in Iran’s predominantly Kurdish west, which shares a border with Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region.
Iran’s exiled Kurdish parties base themselves in Iraq and they have voiced support for the protests - thus, stoking rage in authorities who want to blame outside forces for the uprising on homegrown turf.
The UK condemned the Iranian attacks on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Minister of State for the Middle East, South Asia, UN and the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, said: "Iran must cease its indiscriminate bombardment of Kurdish towns which has led to the loss of innocent lives and damaged civilian infrastructure."
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq has said it rejects the notion that the country can be treated as the region’s “backyard” where "neighbours routinely, and with impunity, violate its sovereignty."
It continued: "Rocket diplomacy is a reckless act with devastating consequences. These attacks need to cease immediately."
The US' National security adviser Jake Sullivan also condemned Iran, saying the country cannot deflect blame from its internal problems and "the legitimate grievances of its population with attacks across its borders."
He continued: "Its flagrant use of missiles and drones against its neighbours, as well as its providing of drones to Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine and to proxies throughout the Middle East region, should be universally condemned."
