'Attack flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty': Iraq summons Iran envoy over missile strikes

The Iraqi foreign ministry said it called in Iran’s envoy in Baghdad on Tuesday to protest after its ally’s Revolutionary Guards carried out deadly missile strikes on its soil. It said that it also recalled its ambassador from Tehran after the attack. “Iraq condemns the attack carried out in several areas of Arbil which claimed civilian lives,” AFP quoted the ministry as saying in a letter handed to charge d’affaires Abol Fadl Azizi. “The attack is a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty, which goes against… international law and threatens the security of the region,” it added. Late on Monday, Iran announced that it had conducted attacks against a “spy headquarters and gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” in Arbil, Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, just after missiles hit an upmarket suburb near the US embassy. The Kurdish regional government’s security council claimed in a statement that the attacks killed four people and injured six others. 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.” Additional political personalities from the area also verified Dizayi’s passing. 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.” According to a different report, it targeted an Israeli spy agency’s headquarters in the Kurdish area of Iraq called Mossad. Meanwhile, Iran defended its missile strikes in Iraq and Syria Tuesday, saying they were a “targeted operation” and “just punishment” against those who breach the Islamic republic’s security. “The Islamic republic, with its high intelligence capability, in a precise and targeted operation identified the criminals’ headquarters and hit it with precision weapons,” AFP quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani as saying, adding that it was “just punishment” for those breaching Iran’s security. With inputs from agencies