Tehran — Iran warned Monday that it will not tolerate "threats" coming from Iraq, a day after firing ballistic missiles at what it mentioned was an Israeli website within the neighboring nation.
"It's not in any respect acceptable that one in every of our neighbors that has deep relations with us... turns into a middle for creating threats in opposition to the Islamic republic," mentioned international ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh.
"Iran won't tolerate that a middle close to its borders turns into the middle for sabotage, conspiracy and sending terrorist teams to Iran," he mentioned at his weekly press convention in Tehran.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the armed forces, mentioned Sunday that they had focused a "strategic middle" belonging to Israel, the Islamic republic's arch enemy, within the northern Iraqi metropolis of Erbil, utilizing "highly effective precision missiles."
Kurdish authorities, nevertheless, insisted that the Jewish state has no websites in or close to Erbil, the capital of their autonomous area in Iraq's north.
The authorities mentioned a dozen ballistic missiles had focused Erbil, together with some U.S. services, within the pre-dawn cross-border assault that frivolously wounded two civilians.
A U.S. State Division official instructed CBS Information there have been no American casualties, and that almost all if not the entire missiles that struck had been directed at a personal Iraqi Kurdish citizen's residential compound.
Baghdad summoned the Iranian ambassador, Iraj Masjidi, to protest the strikes as Iraq's international ministry condemned the assault as a "flagrant violation of (Iraqi) sovereignty."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi concerning the assault. State Division spokesman Ned Worth mentioned in a press release that Blinken had condemned the Iranian missile strike as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty and "expressed solidarity with the Iraqi individuals."
"The Secretary conveyed the U.S. dedication to working with the Iraqi authorities and others within the area to carry Iran accountable," Worth mentioned.
In Tehran, Khatibzadeh mentioned his nation had warned Iraq's federal authorities "a number of occasions" to not "enable Iraq's borders with Iran to turn into insecure."
"Iran expects the central authorities of Iraq to finish this example as soon as and for all and never enable its borders to be abused," he added.
Sunday's assault got here almost every week after two officers of Iran's Revolutionary Guards had been killed in Syria in a strike attributed to Israel, a key U.S. ally.
Iraq, together with the Kurdistan area, is house to a now decreased deployment of U.S. troops who led a coalition combating the ISIS jihadist group.
Washington has blamed a sequence of rocket and drone assaults in opposition to its navy and diplomatic pursuits in Iraq on pro-Iran teams who demand the departure of the remaining U.S. troops, however cross-border missile fireplace has been uncommon.