Iran targets 'terrorist' groups in Iraq's northern region for second day

Tehran said the Free Kurdistan Party was hit by missiles and kamikaze drones

A screengrab from an Iranian military video purports to show missile launches during an attack on Iranian Kurdish opposition positions in Iraq from an undisclosed location in Iran. EPA

Iran attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq with missiles and drones hours after MPs in Baghdad met for an emergency meeting on earlier attacks by the Iranian military against what it calls “terrorists” operating near its borders.

Authorities are investigating the latest attacks by Iran on Iraq's Kurdistan region, which come amid a wave of shelling on Kurdish positions in Iraq and in Syria by Turkey.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of Iran’s armed forces, carried out Tuesday's attacks using missiles and kamikaze drones.

“In today's operation, the base of a separatist terrorist group near Kirkuk, known as the Free Kurdistan Party, was targeted by missiles and kamikaze drones,” Tasnim said.

Iraq and Kurdish officials have called on Iran to stop the cross-border attacks.

An official at the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said investigations into the attacks are under way.

“Today the Islamic Republic of Iran targeted Iranian opposition groups in two areas in the Kurdistan Region with rockets,” the head of the KRG's Foreign Media Affairs, Lawk Ghafuri, said in a statement given to The National.

“The areas targeted were Perdi town in southern Erbil province and Degala area in eastern Erbil province,” Mr Ghafuri said.

The damage is being assessed, he said.

The United Nations condemned the attacks in Iraq, the body's Iraq envoy, Jeanine Hennis, said.

"Unfortunately, we can only repeat ourselves. Ongoing Iranian attacks are intolerable," she said on Twitter.

"Iraq must act as one in order not to give room to further hostilities. Strength abroad begins with unity at home," she said.

On Monday, Iran's IRGC hit Kurdish targets “near Erbil”. The US and Iraq condemned the attack, saying they were a violation of Iraq's sovereignty.

Iraqi MPs held an emergency meeting to discuss the strikes.

Iranian Kurdish groups based in Iraq's Kurdistan region have been accused by Tehran of supporting anti-government protests that have rocked the country since the death of a young woman.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian girl, was arrested by Iran's morality police in mid-September and was pronounced dead three days later.

She was taken into custody on accusations she was not abiding by the country's strict dress code.