Iran shells Iraq's Kurdish capital to target 'terrorist bases'

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shelled an area north of the Kurdish Iraqi capital of Erbil today, targeting what Iranian state television described as terrorist bases, Reuters reports.

Iraqi Kurdish media reported that an artillery shell had landed in a village in the Sidekan area near the Iranian border, around 100 kilometres northeast of Erbil.

Iranian state TV said no casualties had been reported and details of the attack would be announced shortly.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the Guards have previously targeted Iranian Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq.

A local official, quoted by the Erbil-based Rudaw news website, said shells have occasionally hit the area in the past.

In March, the Guards carried out an attack against what Iranian state media described as “Israeli strategic centres” in Erbil, suggesting it was revenge for Israeli airstrikes that killed Iranian military personnel in Syria.

The Iraqi Kurdish regional government said the attack in March only targeted civilian residential areas, not sites belonging to foreign countries, and called on the international community to carry out an investigation.

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