Drone downed over Sulaimani, pro-Iran group claims attack

Rudaw

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A drone was intercepted over the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province early Saturday, as an Iraq pro-Iran armed group claimed responsibility for the attack amid ongoing strikes by Iran and its allied groups on positions they claim host US assets.

Rudaw’s reporter on the ground, Peshawa Bakhtiar, reported that a drone was destroyed in the city’s skies before it could reach its intended target. According to available information, the incident caused no casualties. According to preliminary information, gunfire was heard near a headquarter of local security forces.

Shortly after the incident, the Iraqi pro-Iran armed group Saraya Awliya al-Dam, one of the factions within the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, issued a statement saying that its fighters “carried out an attack via an unmanned aerial vehicle and hit a sensitive target in Sulaimani."

Footage shows heavy gunfire as defenses intercept a projectile over the Kurdistan Region’s city of Sulaimani at dawn on Saturday.

The group said in its statement that the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of "Ali Khamenei" and also in response to strikes that caused the deaths of a number of Iraqi fighters.


Late Friday night, debris from a drone struck the upscale Arjaan Rotana hotel in Erbil, with footage showing smoke rising from the building adjacent to the Sky Towers residential compound northwest of the city.

In a statement on Facebook, the Kurdistan Region’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTG) reported that at 22:41 local time on Friday, forces from the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) “intercepted and shot down four suicide drones in the skies over Erbil."

Meanwhile, Erbil Governor Omed Xoshnaw told Rudaw that the drone fell near the Rotana Arjaan Hotel and the Sky Tower residential compound northwest of the city, noting that the drones were “destroyed” before impact.

The pro-Iran armed group Ashab al-Kahf claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a separate statement on Facebook, Xoshnaw said that Erbil has been repeatedly “targeted by groups operating outside the law, seeking to carry out terrorist acts,” despite the city not being “involved in [ongoing regional] conflicts” and the Kurdistan Region’s role as a peaceful and reconciliatory hub in the region.

The attack in Erbil came shortly after the US embassy in Baghdad on Friday warned that Iran-aligned militia groups “may seek to target hotels frequented by foreigners” in the Kurdistan Region. It “strongly encouraged” US citizens to “depart as soon as they are safely able to do so, and reconsider lodging options if choosing not to depart.”

Since the United States and Israel launched a campaign against Iran last week, which saw the killing of longtime Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an airstrike on Tehran on its first day, Iran-aligned groups have intensified attacks on alleged US targets in the Kurdistan Region.