Strongly condemning Iran’s ballistic missile attack on the US Consulate in Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, the White House vowed on Sunday to work with the Iraqi government and other actors in the Middle East to hold Iran accountable, the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
Sullivan said the US condemns unjustified Iran’s attack on a civilian residence as well as on the sovereignty of Iraq and its Kurdistan region in Erbil, along with Iraqi PM Kadhimi and the Kurdistan Region’s President Nechirvan Barzani, and PM Masrour Barzani.
Pointing that the US government would support its Middle East partners in confronting similar threats from Iran, he also said that Washington plans to help Iraq get missile defense capabilities, stressing that the missile barrage only shows how dangerous Iran could be although no US citizens were harmed in the attack and no US facilities were hit.
In that context, he reiterated that the only thing more dangerous than Iran armed with ballistic missiles and advanced military capabilities is that Iran and a nuclear weapon, underscoring that President Biden remains strongly committed to stopping Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Tehran claimed responsibility on Sunday for the 12 missiles barrage that struck near a sprawling US consulate complex in Erbil, in northern Iraq, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers and two civilians earlier last week near Syria’s capital Damascus.
IRGC claimed it had targeted the Zionists’ strategic center of plotting and evil, but Kurdish authorities insisted that Israel has no sites in or anywhere near Erbil.
Accusing Tehran of repeatedly targeting the autonomous region without international censure, the Kurdistan Regional Government stressed in a statement on Twitter that the silence on the part of the international community would only motivate future attacks.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for a dozen ballistic missiles that struck Erbil in the early hours of Sunday and warned of more attacks to come. According to Tasnim news agency, Iran fired 10 Fateh missiles, including several Fateh-110 missiles with a range of about 300 km.
Although the Iranian source reported multiple casualties as a result of the missile barrage, the Kurdish Interior Ministry said the missiles only caused material damage, and one civilian was injured.
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