US requests Security Council meeting to condemn Erbil attack

Dilan Sirwan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States on Wednesday requested a UN Security Council meeting to condemn Iran’s missile attack on the Kurdistan Region, calling on the council to hold Tehran accountable and support Iraq’s democracy and sovereignty.

“Today, the U.S. called for a UN Security Council discussion to condemn Iran’s missile attack on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” read a tweet from the US Mission to the UN, adding that the “reckless and unprovoked attack struck a civilian residence in Erbil and was an outrageous violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for firing a dozen ballistic missiles on Sunday, hitting several targets on the outskirts of Erbil and injuring two civilians.

The IRGC said they had targeted "the strategic center of the Zionist conspiracy and evil by point-to-point missile," without mentioning Erbil or the Kurdistan Region by name.

However, on Monday, Iranian state media reported the incident as an attack targeting “Mossad [Israeli intelligence] bases in Erbil.”

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) urged for Kurdish territory to not be used as a “battlefield to settle disputes on the basis of baseless pretexts that are far from the truth,” referring to Iranian claims that the missile attack targeted Israeli intelligence bases in Erbil, which the KRG denies exist.

The attack came less than a week after Iran vowed to seek revenge against Israel, warning it would “pay the price” for the killing of two members of the IRGC in an airstrike in Syria. Iran's lawmaking body on Tuesday issued a statement commending the IRGC’s missile attack, signed by 213 lawmakers.

The US mission to the UN called on the Security Council to hold Iran accountable.

 

 

However, the tweet comes as reports emerged stating that the Biden administration is considering to remove the IRGC from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. 

Removing the terrorist designation would reverse the decision made by former US President Donald Trump and is expected to spark Republican uproar. 

Trump’s 2019 designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization was the first time a state force was added to the list.