MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. The shelling by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, part of the Iranian Armed Forces) of facilities near the city of Erbil, the administrative center of Iraqi Kurdistan, has shown that new actors are being drawn into the confrontation between Israel and Hamas, Boris Dolgov, a leading researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, has told TASS.
"This is a continuation and expansion of the conflict that now exists. As we remember, the escalation began with hostilities between Israel and Hamas, then continued in the Red Sea region over actions by the Yemeni rebel movement Ansar Allah (Houthis). Now, in the same context, Iran has launched strikes against Iraqi Kurdistan - in fact, an ally of Israel and the US," the expert said.
Earlier, spokesmen for the elite units of the Iranian Armed Forces said that targets in the vicinity of Erbil were attacked on January 16 in response to the January 3 terrorist attack in Iran's Kerman, as well as "the recent atrocities of the Zionist regime that led to the martyrdom of commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the resistance axis."
Commenting on these reports, Dolgov pointed out that Iraqi Kurdistan's intelligence services had been created and armed with the support of Israel and the United States.
"Iran's actions can really be seen as a response to the possible involvement of these very intelligence services in the latest terrorist attacks," he explained. "It is quite clear that there is now a confrontation between Tehran and forces backed by the Israeli authorities and Washington."
Revocation of Iraqi ambassador
At the same time, the analyst expressed confidence that the shelling of Erbil was not related to Iran-Iraq bilateral relations. "Yes, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry recalled its ambassador to Tehran for consultations in connection with the IRGC attack, but Kurdistan, although nominally it is part of Iraq, acts often on its own, contrary to the policies of the Iraqi government in Baghdad."
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry stressed that the IRGC shelling was a blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and categorically contradicted the principles of good-neighborliness.