Iran Targets ‘Israeli Spies’ in Attack on US Consulate in Iraq

Iran Targets ‘Israeli Spies’ in Attack on US Consulate in Iraq

According to American and Iraqi security officials, the missiles hit the building directly, but no casualties were reported.

By TPS

Iran’s missile attack on Saturday night on targets in Irbil, Kurdistan, was against two bases of the Israeli Mossad intelligence organization, several media outlets reported Sunday.

At least 12 missiles were fired from Iran at the area of the US consulate in Irbil in northern Iraq.

According to American and Iraqi security officials, the missiles hit the building directly, but no casualties were reported.

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that a Mossad base targeted was an advanced training center.

“There are also reports suggesting that Washington’s new consulate building and two advanced training centers run by Israeli spy agency, Mossad, in Erbil have been targeted in the missile attack,” claimed Iran’s Tasnim agency, without citing evidence for linking Israel to the incident.

The Lebanese Al-Miyadin news, affiliated with Hezbollah, reported likewise that an Israeli intelligence and security facility was the target of the Iranian missile attack.

Whether it was the US embassy or a Mossad base that was targeted, some estimates say that the attack was a response to the killing of two Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers in an Israeli attack in Syria last week.

Two Iranian officers of the “Al-Quds Legion,” which is affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), were killed in an Israeli airstrike on military posts near Damascus Airport last Monday.

The IRGC posted a statement saying that “Israel will pay the price for this crime.”

Some sources reported that the two officers were engaged in the project to convert Hezbollah’s missile arsenal into an accurately guided-missile stockpile.

The IDF has raised the level of alert in all its units ahead of an Iranian revenge attack for the killing of the two Iranian officers. The possibility of another Iranian response has not been ruled out and the IDF remains on high alert. The defense forces in the north have been put on high alert even before Saturday’s attack.

Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, who returned from work meetings in Bahrain on Friday, reportedly held an operational assessment on his return that dealt with preparedness for Iran’s possible response.

Amos Yadlin, a former general in the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, told an Israeli radio station on Sunday after the incident “it is an unusual event but not a game-changer.”

“If there are no casualties then both the Iranian and American sides will know to contain the incident but if there are American or other casualties maybe it will force the parties to respond,” he estimated.