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Civilians were killed in attack condemned by U.S., France but not yet acknowledged by IsraelIran fired missiles late Monday at what it claimed were Israeli "spy headquarters" near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria. Four civilians were killed and six injured after missiles hit an upscale area near the consulate in Erbil, the seat of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to the security council of the Kurdish regional government. Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement that it had hit a headquarters...

In what is a massive escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, Iran reportedly bombed a U.S. consulate in Northern Iraq on Monday. Several videos have gone viral claiming to show the moment of impact, though confirmation of their authenticity is still being gathered. The consulate was just one of eight different locations targeted, according to sources inside Iraq. Several explosions were reported near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, an Iraqi security source told ABC News.The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps quickly took responsibility for the attacks, saying it was targeting the "headquarters of spies" and "anti-Iranian terrorist gatherings in...

Multiple loud explosions have been heard near Erbil, Iraq, very close to an area where an airport houses US forces With sirens sounding in the US consultate in Erbil

ACI MENA will operate from the campus of Erbil’s Catholic University.EWTN Global Catholic Network has launched an Arabic-language news service headquartered in Erbil, Iraq, Michael P. Warsaw, EWTN's chairman of the board and CEO, announced March 25, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation. The Association for Catholic Information Middle East and North Africa, or ACI MENA, will publish original news content in Arabic using a network of correspondents across the region. The news agency will operate from the campus of Erbil’s Catholic University (CUE). A ceremony marking the occasion was held in Erbil, which included Archbishop Bashar Warda of the...

Roi Kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) Tweeted: Mar 14, 2022 Strange incident - an American source tells the New York Times reporter that the facility that Iran attacked in Arbil is Israeli and in fact aligns with the Iranians' claims. A moment later a senior official in the Biden administration denies to the same reporter the things and says it is a civilian facility. So what's going on here?((Farnaz Fassihi @farnazfassihi: A senior Biden administration official refuted the earlier comment by a US official...)) https://twitter.com/kaisos1987/status/1503497953671102467 ______REPLIES: One posted the picture: and added: Listen, there are here los...

Blesa Shaways @Bilesa_Shaweys Tweeted: I worked with @kurdistan24tv for 5 years. Everyday I looked at this compound, #Iran & it’s proxies are lying. It’s not an #Israeli center. There wasn’t any militants in it, we never saw any foreigners in the neighborhood... Everyone know it’s owned by Baz Karim & usually visited by his relatives. There was a small zoo inside it (contained many animals), also many luxury cars (some classic). Those who worked in this neighborhood know very well it’s no [t] an intelligence center. Some of pro #Iran journalists (unfortunately some of them working with #US media outlets)...

The authorities in Iraq decided to prohibit television channels and the media host the Iranian diplomat and the interpreter Amir Mosawi after threatening that there are several more destinations in Erbil to be "handled." #ריבונות pic.twitter.com/IJ5s7mHnz2— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) March 14, 2022

Indeed, I have not seen a united Iraq around anything for a long time. Condemnations all-over-the-map [in Iraq] against Iran following the missile attack, from Erbil to Baghdad, including the "crowner" of kings Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr. Why is this interesting? Because the shooting of the Iranians takes place on days when there is some breakthrough in the contacts for the formation of the government with the participation of factions affiliated with Iran— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) March 13, 2022

The AP reports on the message from the mullahs that landed in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan province: “Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early Sunday near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard….Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said on its website that it launched the attack against an Israeli ‘strategic center of conspiracy’ in Irbil.” MENA’s Simon Rushton has more here and Israel National News adds this: “A senior US official confirmed to Fox News...

Some 12 missiles were fired from Iranian territory and fell near the US consulate in Erbil in northwestern Iraq on Saturday night. The Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service announced that 12 ballistic missiles were fired from "outside the borders of Iraq and the Kurdistan region, specifically from the east," according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA). Independent open-source intelligence (OSINT) accounts shared videos reportedly shared by Iranian civilians showing missiles being fired from Iran at the time of the attack, with at least one of the videos being geolocated to a site in Khasabad in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran.

Multiple long-range ballistic missiles fired at US consulate in Erbil, Iraq, Sky News Arabia reports.

A linguist for the Department of Defense pleaded guilty on Friday to passing classified information about U.S. human intelligence sources to an individual with ties to Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, the Department of Justice said. Mariam Taha Thompson began sending the information after the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military commander, in an airstrike in early 2020, according to court documents. Thompson, who held a top secret security clearance, had been stationed at a Special Operations Task Force facility in Iraq from mid-December 2019 until her arrest a few months later. Years before she began passing classified...

A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq. The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables...

Pentagon officials believe that the more than a dozen missiles launched at two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces Tuesday night were designed to kill Americans, but the Iranian efforts were thwarted by the military's Early Warning Systems, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley told reporters on Wednesday. “I believe based on what I saw and what I know is that they were intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft and to kill personnel," Milley said. U.S. military officials were warned about Iran's pending ballistic missile strike "when the air defense systems went active,"...

Turkish government intelligence has determined Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22 – the police officer who recently assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov while the ambassador was giving a speech to open an art gallery in Ankara – was a member of the Gulen organization, which claimed to be the same group that staged an unsuccessful coup in Turkey in July.... ....the Clinton Foundation was engaged in a pay-to-play scheme to obtain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for the Obama administration decision to give asylum to Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim imam the Erdogan government holds responsible for the attempted coup July...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US Ambassador to Iraq, Douglas Silliman, along with the Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, on Monday announced the start of constructing a new US Consulate in the capital of the semi-autonomous region. In a statement delivered at a ceremony in Erbil, Barzani said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) welcomes the construction of the compound, one of the largest in the world, and that “it is a sign of US confidence and trust in the Kurdistan Region, now and in its future.” He mentioned that the project is an indicator that Washington wants to...

Kurds say that the Iraqi forces include not only elite Counter-Terrorism fighters but also Iranian-backed Shia militias often called Hashd al-Shaabi. Iraqis tend to stress that this is an Iraqi army operation, whereas Kurds emphasize the Iranian role. There are also divisions within the Kurdish side with some Kurdish leaders associated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan supporting the Iraqi army against Kurdish forces associated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Picture taken on October 14, 2017 shows civilian taking up arms to defend the oil-rich city of Kirkuk against a potential attack by the Iraqi forces. Photo: Rudaw TV KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region – Peshmerga intelligence shows beyond a doubt that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are among the ranks of the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi stationed south and west of Kirkuk. “The Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi are not the only state that are attacking us. We have intelligence with 100 percent accuracy that there are also the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards among them,” Shwan Shamerani,...

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters say Iraq's central government has ordered them to surrender key military positions in the disputed city of Kirkuk within hours. They were given a deadline of 02:00 on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday) to quit military facilities and oil fields. Brief clashes also erupted between Kurdish forces and (Iranian) Shia militia backing the Iraqi government.

Federal Kurdistan Region’s President Barzani has come to an agreement on 4 points with Iraqi Vice Presidents Allavi and Nuceyfi for a solution to the issues between Erbil and Baghdad. Federal Kurdistan Region’s President Masoud Barzani and Iraqi Vice Presidents Iyad Allavi and Usame Nuceyfi have reached an agreement on 4 points for a solution to the issues between Erbil and Baghdad. Federal Kurdistan Region Presidential Council Chairperson Fuad Hussein announced that the 3-party meeting has concluded with agreement on 4 points for a solution to the issues. In the statement, Hussein said all three parties have agreed on the...