The US on Tuesday accused Iran of staging a "reckless and imprecise" missile strike on northern Iraq after the Islamic republic said it had targeted the "headquarters" of Israel's Mossad spy agency there.
Insisting it was acting in self-defence, Iran said it launched ballistic missiles at targets in Iraq and at Islamic State (IS) group positions in Syria on Monday night.
Four people were killed and six wounded in the attack near the city of Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to local officials, underlining the growing risks of regional spillover from Israel’s war in Gaza.
Britain and the US have already struck back at Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after they staged a series of attacks on Red Sea shipping, ostensibly in support of besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
Qatar, which has been mediating between Israel and Hamas, warned that the missile strikes on Houthi positions would not succeed unless backed by diplomacy.
The current regional situation is a "recipe for escalation everywhere", Qatari premier Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said at the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos.
Iran said it respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries but was also using its "legitimate and legal right to deter national security threats".
"After the enemy miscalculated by targeting the Islamic Republic, Iran retaliated with its high intelligence capability in a precise and targeted operation against the culprits' headquarters," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the strikes in Syria were in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Iran claimed by IS this month. It killed at least 94 people who were marking the anniversary of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani’s assassination by a US drone strike near Baghdad in January 2020.
The Revolutionary Guards said that in Irbil, "one of the main Mossad espionage headquarters in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region was destroyed with ballistic missiles".
The site of the missile attack in Erbil
— Kurdistan 24 English (@K24English) January 16, 2024
📸 Hawkar Salih/Kurdistan24 pic.twitter.com/Gn532CZ9TQ
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has long accused Iran of fomenting regional violence against the Jewish state and of pursuing a drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
Hours after the attack on the purported Mossad building, three armed drones were shot down over Irbil airbase, which is used by US and other international forces.
UK forces are deployed in Iraq as part of the international operation against IS, but were not believed to have been in any danger in Irbil. US officials said their own forces were not targeted.
"We will continue to assess the situation, but initial indications are that this was a reckless and imprecise set of strikes," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
"The United States supports the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Iraq," she added.
Iraqi and Kurdish officials issued strong condemnation of Iran, with Iran’s senior diplomat in Baghdad summoned to the foreign ministry to hear a formal protest.
The Iraqi government said it would take "all legal measures", including filing a complaint at the United Nations Security Council.
