U.S., Kurds Blame Iran for Deadly Irbil Attack Despite Tehran’s Denials: Sources – By Paul D. Shinkman (US News) / Feb 16 2021
Tehran on Tuesday denied any involvement in the deadly attack on an airport housing U.S. forces in northern Iraq, despite a new assessment from U.S. and Kurdish authorities.
THE U.S. AND ITS Kurdish allies in Iraq believe Iran was complicit in a deadly rocket attack Monday against an airport housing American forces near the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil that killed at least one contractor from the U.S.-led coalition and injured a U.S. service member among many others, multiple sources confirm to U.S. News.
The U.S. military headquarters in the region and the semi-autonomous Kurdish authority there say an initial investigation indicates that proxy militia with clear Iranian backing, known as Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, carried out the attack, an American source in the region familiar with the assessments tells U.S. News.
A separate source in the Kurdish government in Irbil who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly attributed the attack to “an outlawed group working under the banner of PMF and using PMF resources.”
