For the second time in two years, Iran has bombed the home of a prominent Kurdish businessman. In March 2022, it was an oil boss, this week one of the main builders of the city of Erbil. Sheik Baz was not at home, Peshraw Dizayee was killed. In both cases, Iran claimed their homes were headquarters of the Israeli secret service Mossad.
Dizayee, as CEO of the Falcon Group, helped drastically modernize the Kurdish capital in a short time. His high-rise buildings, clad in shiny dark glass, define the city’s skyline. Along with him, his one-year-old daughter Jina, a visiting businessman friend, and a housekeeper died. There were seventeen injured.
What the two targeted businessmen have in common is their good relationship with the Barzani family. Add to that a recent Iranian attack on a peshmerga unit near the residence and work palace of former president Massoud Barzani, and the conclusion is that the attack was partly intended as a message to the ruling Kurdish clan. Each attack gets a bit closer.
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The bigger picture, however, is more complicated, as is usual in this region. Officially, the fifteen cruise missiles fired at Iraq and Syria (eleven for Iraqi Kurdistan, four for Syria) were in retaliation for the deaths of several prominent Iranian generals and the double attack in Kerman.
Last week, Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani signed the condolence register for the victims of that attack, claimed by the ISIS terrorist group, but the Iranian government continues to attribute it to Israel and the U.S. Barzani soothingly stated then that the Region was not a source of threat to Iran.
Yet the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke of punishing ‘those who pose a threat’ to Iran’s security with the lastest attack. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard claimed them and stated that they were aimed at ‘spy bases and homes of anti-Iranian terrorist groups’. Its media called Dizayee ‘a business associate of the Zionist regime’.
Naturally, the usual condemnations followed, also from the U.S., but this time the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs surprisingly announced that it will file a complaint with the UN Security Council. The Iranian chargé d’affaires in Baghdad was summoned and the Iraqi ambassador called back from Tehran, and yet another investigation announced.
Gaza
Interestingly, Gaza was not mentioned. Iran does not want to be directly involved in that conflict, only through proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. These militias continuously attack American soldiers in Iraq. Shortly after the barrage of rockets, armed drones again struck the military base at the Erbil airport where Americans are stationed.
The Americans have effective defense systems for their bases in Kurdistan. The call for equipping the Kurds with Patriot missiles for their defense is growing louder and has now finally also reached the U.S.
Iran has been internally pressured to retaliate for the attacks on the generals and in Kerman. But it doesn’t want to be in a direct conflict with Israel and the U.S. Although it knows that ISIS from Afghanistan was behind the attacks in Kerman, it sees no possibility to attack the group there without antagonizing the Taliban.
Targeting Kurdistan is then the easier alternative. There, the Americans are building a consulate that seems to have a strong regional function and American troops are stationed. It’s known that the Kurds have good relations with both the U.S. and Israel.
Flies
It’s two birds with one stone. You indirectly vent on those two enemies and simultaneously damage the economy and prosperity of the only part of Iraq where you don’t yet have real influence, Kurdistan. While Tehran has increasingly gained power in southern Iraq, the Kurds refuse to dance to their tune.
Mostly due to Tehran’s influence, the Kurds have almost lost all their oil industry revenue. For almost a year after an arbitration ruling in Paris instigated by Baghdad, the export via Turkey has been mostly at a standstill. Another major pillar of the Kurdish economy is construction, also because a lot of black money is laundered there.
Former President Massoud Barzani emphasized that the plan to scare him and his family doesn’t work. ‘There is no pride in murdering civilians, you can kill us, but rest assured that the will of the people of Kurdistan shall remain unwavering.‘
On the other hand, the four missiles Iran sent to Syria were intended as retaliation against ISIS. Uh… wasn’t that attack the work of Israel and the U.S., according to your own statements? Oh yes, you deem ISIS a product of those two countries. But the missiles were sent to Idlib, where ISIS has no presence. They were supposedly aimed at targets of the radical Islamic group Tahrir al-Sham – an enemy of ISIS.
The targets seem completely subordinate to the message, which is loud and clear to Israel. Iranian Khyber-Shaken missiles were used, capable of covering a distance of 1200 kilometers. And thus, they can also reach Israel.
Turkey
And while Iran unleashed a barrage of missiles on the Kurds in Iraq and terrorist groups in Syria, Turkey also made its presence felt. Since the war in Gaza, Ankara has intensified its attacks on Kurds in Syria and Iraq. These are supposedly aimed at the Turkish resistance group PKK, due to attacks in which Turkish soldiers have died. But in recent days, mainly economic targets in the Kurdish region of Syria were hit.
In more than seventy airstrikes, electricity plants, an oil refinery, a wedding hall, and shops were hit. Analysts believe that Turkey is trying to drive a wedge between the military wing of the PKK and the government of Syrian Kurdistan. And on the other hand, it aims to destroy the political project of the PKK and related groups in Syria.
One of the targets was a prison for ISIS youths, and a breakout was narrowly prevented. The Kurds in Syria have played a major role in the fight against ISIS and are still holding tens of thousands of ISIS supporters and their families, to which the world turns a blind eye.
Powerless
Protests against the Turkish bombings focus on the fact that a NATO member is bombing a neighboring country – without NATO intervening. In Erbil (where protesting is usually punished), thousands took to the streets to protest at the UN compound against the Iranian rockets.
The feeling of powerlessness among Kurds in both countries is significant. What can they do against powerful states like Iran and Turkey when they decide to use their territory for messages to others? And when the U.S., present in both regions due to the fight against ISIS, allows this to happen? Is the only option then really, to be a sitting duck?
