If Iran can claim it has struck at both it gets to claim it has struck two for the price of one. This doesn’t mean that Iran has actually done what it claims to have done.
Iran took credit for targeting northern Iraq’s Kurdistan autonomous region with a dozen missiles on Sunday morning.
The claim is that it had targeted a US military base, the US consulate in Erbil “as well as two Mossad training centers in Erbil and an explosion in the Sulaimaniyah area in northern Iraq,” according to Iranian news outlets Fars News and Tasnim News. Both Iranian media sources quoted a third source supporting claims that they struck at Israeli sites, but nevertheless, put the claims in their headlines, affirming the reports.
Fars News and Tasnim News are considered close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), so their reports represent the Iranian government’s position on the attacks that occurred, meaning that Iran is openly bragging about the attacks.
How does Iran benefit from this?
The decision by Iran to bring up Israel in connection to these attacks that targeted an area near where the US is building a large new consulate in northern Iraq may bring Iran several benefits. First, it makes it seem like Iran is targeting Israel, without Iran having to actually target inside Israel using its precious resources — missiles. Second, this is not the first time Iran spread claims it targeted “Mossad” headquarters in northern Iraq. In April, Iran made the same claims. Kurdish officials at the time denied any Israeli presence in the autonomous region.
What Iran media is saying, this time, is that it used 14 “Grad” rockets of the 122mm size to “hit near the US military base on the outskirts of Erbil Airport and around the US Consulate in Erbil.” It also said that “Iraqi media reported that the US Consulate headquarters in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, had been hit by five missiles.”
However, Iran has tried to distance itself a bit from the report on attacks on Israeli sites by quoting another media as saying that “the rocket attacks targeted two advanced Israeli Mossad training centers in Erbil, northern Iraq,” referencing “Saber” news in this report.
Why is Iran muddying the waters?
Iran wants to show it can strike at the US and others in northern Iraq, easily.
Iran has long tried to spread claims that Israel is active in Iraq and this is part of the overall Iranian campaign to use — and turn — Iraq against Israel.
Iran began moving ballistic missiles to Iraq in 2019 and 2020, while pro-Iran voices blamed Israel for attacks in Iraq in 2019. Some online sources also claimed that Iran’s attack in Iraq was linked to the killing of two Iranian officers in Syria recently.
This means Iran is trying to link several separate events into one major attack in Iraq, an attack targeting the US.
Iran has supposedly done this before, attacking the Tanf base in Syria and then spreading media reports that this was in response to Israeli airstrikes in Syria. For Iran, the US and Israel are both enemies and Iran is part of the “resistance” against both countries. If Iran can claim it has struck at both it gets to claim it has struck two for the price of one. This doesn’t mean that Iran has actually done what it claims to have done, or even that the rumors it spreads on social media are accurate. This is messaging. Iran wants to message about striking at Israel, without necessarily striking at Israel.
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-701116.