Iraq wants out of the Iran war, but drone strikes are dragging it out – nationally

Erbil, Iraq — Worried about the attacks on planes going to Iraq, Abdullah Mahmoud Tahir called his son on Saturday night.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be fine,'” he recalled.

But 90 minutes later a speeding plane killed his son, Walat, while patrolling the closed Erbil airport. A pro-Iran militia group is blamed for the attack.

The capital of the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, Erbil is not officially involved in the war the United States and Israel are waging in neighboring Iran.

However, it is under siege.

Missiles and drones have been pounding the city and surrounding areas, as Iran uses armed proxy groups based inside Iraq to attack wherever it can.

The sound of explosions and anti-missile systems is becoming increasingly common in Erbil, a major Kurdish city of more than one million people.

While Iran says its “retaliatory strikes” are targeting US and Israeli military assets, residential buildings and even a monastery.

On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates condemned the “unauthorized terrorist plane attack” on its embassy in Erbil overnight.

“This is against human values,” said Jamil Bassam, who was working at a mosque in Erbil when the drone struck the building on the night of March 4.

36 families were living in the area adjacent to the Pope Francis Residential Complex at the time. Most have left and are too afraid to return, Bassam said.

The church is close to the international airport, which also has a US airport. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claims responsibility for the attack on the facility.

It said it was doing so in revenge for the assassinations of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Following the deadly airstrike, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani, warned that his patience was running out.

He accused pro-Iranian groups of attacking the “public areas and economic infrastructure” of Kurdistan, as well as the bases of Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

“We are attacked every day by these drones from Mosul and Kirkuk,” said Omar Salimomar, an Ottawa resident trapped in Iraq. “It’s not easy.”

The Canadian man said he was born in Erbil and flew two weeks ago on a holiday but was unable to leave when the war started and the airport was closed.

He said that the Shia militias that have been shelling Erbil would be wise to listen to the president’s warning that the attack must stop.

“We hope they got the message but the problem is the soldiers, they don’t care,” he said. “I am afraid, my family in Canada, my wife, my son, they are afraid.”

The local economy is also reeling from the war in Iran, which has forced the airport to close, a regional cabinet minister said in an interview.

“It is a great loss,” said Ano Jawhar Abdoka, Minister of Transport and Communications in the Kurdistan Regional Government.

“It’s very important for the economy of the Kurdistan region. It’s the main way we get electronics, medicine, and the closure of the airport affects a lot of businesses.”

Things could be worse.

Iraq’s semi-autonomous north is controlled by ethnic Kurds, who despise Iran and accuse the Shia-majority south of supporting Tehran and its militias.

The minister called the drone attack on the airport an “act of terror” and said the Iraqi government needed to control the militant groups involved.

“They are just tools to spread fear and terror among our people,” he said. “We will not remain, like the Iraqis, at the mercy of proxy, unruly, terrorist militias.”

At the same time, he said, the US was bombing nearby Iranian forces, putting Kurdistan in a unique position to be attacked by both sides in the Iran-Iran war.

“Now Iraq is in great danger, perhaps one of the most vulnerable countries because of this conflict,” said the minister, who represents Christians in the government.

The death toll remains low, but it is growing.

On Monday, Nazim Hamad Kanabi was lying in a hospital bed in Erbil, recovering from surgery to cover the wounds he sustained in a drone crash over the weekend.

He said he was patrolling the airport when “all of a sudden I heard something coming down from the sky. I woke up and I was inside the hospital.”

He said that the detector stayed three to four meters away, and sprayed him with bombs. Both his legs were bandaged, as well as his right arm, shoulder and chest.

Across town, Abdullah Mahmoud Tahir, dressed in black, was greeting family and friends who came to mourn the death of his son.

Walat was 31 years old, worked as a bodybuilder and had two sons aged five and six months, he said. He does not know the details of what happened.

“The only thing we know is that he was at work and the drone landed near his place,” he said as his oldest grandson played on the lawn behind him.

He called the Iranian regime “fascist” and accused it of criticizing its neighbors because it was too weak to confront the US and Israel directly.

“My son, he was a kind and good person, and he always wanted peace. But unfortunately, because of the dark regime of Iran, he was killed,” said Tahir.

“This is not our war, but it is placed on our shoulders.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca