US Republican representatives Guy Reschenthaler and Mike Waltz last week urged the Biden administration to respond to recent Iranian attacks in Iraq and deter future aggression.
“It is deeply concerning that these attacks have not been met with a strong US response, and we believe this will only increase the Revolutionary Guards’ ongoing campaign across the region,” Reschenthaler and Waltz wrote in a letter to US Secretaries of Defense and State Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken.
“To that end, we urge the Administration to respond against these Iranian threats to deter future attacks and protect our regional interests,” they added.
It is noteworthy that both Reschenthaler and Waltz had previously served in the Middle East.
Despite Baghdad and Erbil denouncing Tehran’s missile and drones strikes against Kurdish opposition parties in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards resumed attacks on Tuesday, this time targeting sites near Kirkuk.
Iran has been accusing Iranian Kurdish groups in northern Iraq of stoking a new wave of protests inside the country.
Iran has witnessed two months of nationwide protests that started after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini’s custodial death. Amini was detained by Iran’s morality police over her ‘inappropriate’ attire.
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Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had “launched a new round of attacks against separatist groups based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” the second such strikes in two days.
Headquarters of Kurdish Freedom Party “was targeted by missiles and suicide drones” near Kirkuk, the report said.
An Iraqi Kurdish military official, a local police officer and a party spokesman confirmed renewed strikes on the region to AFP.
“We had taken our precautions and emptied the premises, there were no casualties,” Kurdistan Freedom Party spokesman Khalil Nadri told AFP.
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