Iraq accuses Israel of using airspace to attack Iran, lodges complaint at UN

Iraq has accused Israel of violating its airspace to conduct airstrikes in Iran.

On the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, Israel conducted airstrikes inside Iran in retaliation to the Iranian missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

Iraq on Monday said that Israel used its airspace to conduct airstrikes in Iran and lodged a complaint with the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Iraqi government spokesperson Bassim Alawadi said the letter to Guterres condemns “the Zionist entity’s blatant violation of Iraq’s airspace and sovereignty by using Iraqi airspace to carry out an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 26”, according to AFP.

Iraq, which remains under Iran’s sphere of influence, does not recognise Israel and usually derogatively refers to the Jewish nation as the Zionist Entity.

On Friday night, around 100 Israeli warplanes participated in an operation dubbed ‘Days of Repentance’ to strike inside Iran. As US President Joe Biden had insisted, the Israeli airstrikes avoided Iranian nuclear and oil facilities and struck military and other strategic sites.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel struck Iranian facilities involved in the production of missiles like the cruise and ballistic missiles Iran has used twice in attacking Israel this year. The newspaper said that one such facility was the Parchin military site where Iran once worked on nuclear weapons capabilities.

Separately, The New York Times said that Israel also attacked air defence systems in Iraq and Syria so that they could not intercept the Israeli attack.