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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched a barrage of ballistic missiles against targets in Syria and northern Iraq, including what the elite force described as an Israeli intelligence centre, in a significant escalation of hostilities with Israel.
The guards said on Monday the missile strikes on an “espionage centre” in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, was retaliation for Israeli attacks that have killed at least one Iranian commander in December, as well as members of Iranian-backed militant groups.
Iranian forces also launched missile attacks in Syria, which the guards said were in response to a suicide bombing this month in southern Iran that killed almost 100 people, according to Iranian state news agencies. Isis claimed responsibility for that bombing.
The Iranian attacks will heighten fears that the Middle East is sliding dangerously towards a broader regional conflagration as tensions have soared since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.
The conflict has triggered intensifying hostilities across the region with Iranian-backed Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant movement, trading daily cross-border fire with Israel, Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea, and Iranian-supported Iraqi militants launching missiles and drones against US forces in Iraq and Syria.
Iran has for months indicated it does not want to become directly embroiled in a wider conflict that could lead to it being dragged into a full-blown war with the US and Israel.
But it has supported its proxies in the so-called Axis of Resistance as they have mounted attacks in response to Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
Fears about the risks of the outbreak of a broader conflict have increased in recent weeks as Israeli strikes have killed the Iranian commander in Syria, seven Hamas militants, including one of the group’s senior leaders in Beirut, and stepped up its rhetoric and strikes against Hizbollah in southern Lebanon.
The US has also killed a senior Iraqi militia leader in an air strike in Baghdad this month, and last week launched multiple attacks against Iran-aligned Houthis, in a bid to deter the Yemeni rebels from attacking ships in the Red Sea.
Iran had vowed revenge after two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a cemetery in the Iranian city of Kerman, where people had gathered to commemorate Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guards commander killed in a US drone attack in 2020.
Senior guards commanders had initially claimed that the Kerman attacks were orchestrated by Israel, without providing evidence, before Isis released a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing.
“We assure our dear nation that the Revolutionary Guards’ offensive operations will continue until avenging the last drops of martyrs’ blood,” the guards said in their latest statement.
Two years ago, the Revolutionary Guards launched a missile attack in Erbil, also claiming it was targeting an Israeli intelligence centre. That came days after an Israeli air strike near the Syrian capital Damascus that reportedly killed two Iranian commanders.
Iranian forces are deployed in Syria, where they have supported President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, which erupted in 2011 after the Syrian regime brutally cracked down against a popular uprising.