Iraq to summon US, Iran envoys over deadly attacks: PM’s office 

Iraq says it plans to summon the US and Iranian envoys to the country to denounce a string of deadly attacks on Iraqi territory, as the country has been increasingly dragged into the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office said in a statement on Tuesday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would “deliver formal notes of protest” to the US charge d’affaires in Iraq and the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad over recent strikes.

Those attacks include the targeting of the headquarters of the army’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in Anbar province, as well as the Kurdistan Regional Guard headquarters in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the statement said.

Issued after a meeting of Iraq’s National Security Council, the statement also said the Foreign Affairs Ministry will lodge a formal complaint at the United Nations Security Council “concerning acts of aggression and their consequences”.

Iraq is among several countries across the Middle East to have faced attacks linked to the US-Israeli assault on Iran, which began on February 28.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Iraqi presidency condemned the attack on the PMF’s command headquarters in Anbar, which killed at least 15 people, including the regional operations commander.

Also known as al-Hashd al-Shaabi, the PMF is a branch of the Iraqi army that includes some Iran-aligned armed groups.

Meanwhile, authorities in Iraq’s Kurdish region accused Iran of launching two ballistic missile attacks on Kurdish forces, killing six people and wounding 30 others.

“We strongly condemn this attack, as well as all terrorist acts against the Kurdistan Region. At the same time, we reaffirm our inherent right to respond to any aggression against our people and our land,” the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs said in a statement.

Iraq’s presidency also denounced that attack on the Kurdish forces, stressing that they constitute a “fundamental pillar of the national defence system”.

Iran has not formally commented on the deadly attack.

Reporting from the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig said the attacks mark a “significant escalation” for the country.

“This is no longer being considered as something sporadic but a sustained campaign against Kurdish security forces, which is further causing tension and spreading this conflict inside the Kurdish region,” Baig said.

“Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq had said they didn’t want any part of this conflict; they didn’t want to be a part of any military escalation.”

In Tuesday’s statement, al-Sudani’s office also said the National Security Council had agreed “to confront and respond to military attacks” targeting the PMF and branches of the Iraqi armed forces, in accordance with the right to respond and self-defense”.

The statement said the decision was made “in light of the unjustified attacks and grave violations of Iraqi sovereignty, including the targeting of official security headquarters”.

That could potentially open up a new front in the deadly US-Israeli war on Iran, which has entered its fourth week with no sign of abating despite growing calls for de-escalation.