U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
Iran launched an overnight drone attack on the U.S. Al Udied airbase in Qatar, the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, Qatari officials said. There were no reported casualties.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iranian forces had targeted the Ramat David airbase and a radar site in Israel, the Al-Adiri camp in Kuwait where U.S. forces are stationed, and a drone attack on a base hosting U.S. troops in Erbil, Iraq.
A Guards spokesperson said new initiatives and weapons would soon be deployed to confront Israeli and U.S. aggression, without giving details.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
“This was an ‘existential war’ for Iran, leaving us with no choice but to respond wherever American attacks originate from,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the Raisina Dialogues conference in Delhi on Friday.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran from neighbouring Iraq, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.”
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
By Anthony Solly
