Iran threatens to launch ground operation on northern Iraq
ERBIL, KRI, Iraq (North Press) – Iran threatens to launch a ground military operation on northern Iraq, especially against border areas of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) if Iraq does not fortify the countries’ shared border against Kurdish opposition groups.
Iraqi and Kurdish officials in Baghdad said that Ismail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who arrived in Bagdad on November 14, threatened to carry out a ground military operation on northern Iraq, if Iraqi army does not fortify the countries’ shared border against Kurdish opposition groups.
If the offensive was carried out, it would be unprecedented in Iraq, and raise the specter of regional fallout from Iran’s domestic unrest, which Tehran has portrayed as a foreign plot without offering evidence.
Iran alleges that Kurdish opposition groups in the KRI are inciting anti-government protests in Iran and trafficking weapons into the country.
However, Iranian authorities did not provide evidence of these allegations.
This is the first time Iranian officials publicly threaten to launch a ground military operation on Iraq, after months of cross-border tensions after the killing of Mahsa Amini.
The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who comes from the Kurdish province of Saqez in the predominant Kurdish areas in Iran known otherwise as Eastern Kurdistan, was detained by the morality police at the train station as she was (with her family) on a visit to the capital Tehran, on September 13 for “wearing inappropriate clothing.”
Three days later, Amini died in hospital causing widespread speculation on the cause of her death. While Iranian authorities claim Amini died of heart failure.
The funeral procession of Amini at Aychi’s turned into a protest.
On November 12, Iran Human Rights, a nonprofit non-governmental organization, revealed that 326 people have been killed since the outbreak of Iran protests.
On November 14, Iran launched missile and drone attacks across the border on Kurdish Iranian opposition bases in the governorates of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, in KRI, killing two and wounding at least nine.
The Iranian missiles hit a headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP), in the vicinity of the city of Koya, in Erbil.
Iran launches the attacks under the pretext of pursuing fighters of Kurdish groups deployed in several areas in KRI, in addition, it considers them as “terrorists.”