Tensions in Iran Spill Across the Border Into Iraq

Nine people were killed, and at least 32 others, including children, were injured in the semi-autonomous Kurdan region of Iraq on Wednesday after Iranian forces bombarded the region for the fifth straight day, the Iraqi News Agency reported, citing the regional health minry.
As security forces in Iran have moved to curb protests that have embroiled cities across the country for more than a week, the repercussions are being felt in neighboring Iraq, where Iran has been waging a brutal attack on Kurdish opposition groups.
The drone and missile strikes targeted offices and paramilitary bases of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in Iraqi Kurdan, including in the cities of Irbil, Sulaimaniyah and Pirde, Kurdish officials and rights groups said. They were the latest in a string of attacks on the region since Saturday, after Iran accused Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq of fomenting some of the demonstrations that have overtaken Iran for 12 days.
Those protests were set off after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, on Sept. 16. Amini had been detained over claims that she had violated Iran’s headscarf law, which mandates the covering of hair for adult women.
The demonstrations quickly expanded to dozens of cities in Iran and have evolved into the most widespread challenge to the country’s authoritarian government since 2009, bringing a brutal crackdown from security forces.

Authorities in Iran said Monday that 41 protesters had been killed and more than 1,200 arrested. Human rights groups said that the toll was much higher, but that was difficult to pinpoint, as the government has restricted cellphone and internet service. The Committee to Protect Journals has called for the release of more than 23 journals it said had been detained since the start of the protests.
President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran gave a live televised interview to state television Wednesday, calling the demonstrations sedition orchestrated Iran’s foreign enemies who want to sow division among the public and the government. He said they were threatening the safety of the public and security forces. “For the Islamic Republic, the red line is protecting the lives and properties of the public,” Raisi said. “The roots of the Islamic Republic are very strong.”
The dramatic scenes of resance have thrust Iran into a turmoil that has cut across ethnic and social divides and drawn in people from all walks of life. Videos coursing through social media have shown more women across Iran burning their headscarves and cutting their hair in public shows of defiance. Students and teachers at more than 20 universities staged a mass strike Wednesday.
The unrest has been especially intense in Kurdish areas of northwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq.
The Kurdan region of Iraq has long hosted Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, including paramilitary forces with bases dug into the mountains along the Iraq-Iran border. Iran calls them separats and frequently conducts cross-border attacks against those forces, strikes that have intensified since the latest protests began.
The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, one of the opposition groups targeted Wednesday, says it is not seeking a separate Kurdish state and fights for “a free and democratic” Iran. It accused the Revolutionary Guard of using the strikes to divert attention from the protests.
“We call on the international community not to remain silent,” the group said in a Twitter post.
Raisi made no mention Wednesday of the attacks launched the guards into northern Iraq. He said the government would continue its investigation into Amini’s death and that the final report from the coroner’s office was expected within a few days.
One Iranian drone directed toward Irbil was shot down U.S. forces Wednesday “as it was a threat to CENTCOM forces in the area,” the spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, Col. Joe Buccino, said in a statement, adding that no U.S. forces had been wounded or killed.

“Such indiscriminate attacks threaten innocent civilians risk the hard-fought stability of the region,” he said.
The assaults also affected refugee settlements in the town of Koi Sanjaq, close to Irbil, resulting in civilian casualties, including refugee women and children, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
The guard used 73 missiles and dozens of suicide drones Wednesday to wreak “complete destruction” on its targets, according to Iranian state media, citing Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the ground forces’ top commander.
Pakpour vowed that the bombardments would continue until “the complete disarmament of the anti-Iranian and separat terror group.”
The government of the Kurdan region of Iraq in Iraq denounced the strikes and civilian casualties, calling the attacks “repetitive violations of the sovereignty of the Kurdan region.”
The Iraqi Foreign Minry said in a statement that rockets, artillery and 20 drones were used in the attacks Wednesday, adding that the actions “cast a shadow over the region and will only contribute to more tension.”
The United Nations also condemned the attacks, criticizing the treatment of Iraq as the “region’s backyard where neighbors routinely, and with impunity, violate its sovereignty.”
The health miner for the Kurdan regional government in Iraq, Sama Barzanji, said that rescue teams had been deployed and that hospitals across Irbil were “on alert” to receive the wounded.
Iran has wielded considerable influence over Iraq for most of the past two decades, through religious and economic ties and the backing of militias. But the anti-government protests sweeping Iran could dract it from its oversight of such proxies in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Iran, which is majority Shiite, has long counted on the support of the Shiite Muslim majority in Iraq to maintain a foothold there.
But clashes last month in Baghdad between two of the most powerful Iraqi Shiite groups — militias backed Iran and fighters loyal to Iraqi national cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — have worried Iran.