Last night the Kurdistan Region Security Council blamed the Iraqi Hezbollah militia for carrying out a drone attack against Erbil. The attack was carried out using a kamikaze drone that destroyed two vehicles on Erbil Pirmam Road. 

Top Mossad assassination commander killed, Iranian media reported. It is not the first time that Iran claims to have targeted Mossad agents in the KDP-controlled Erbil.

Erbil has been attacked numerous times since 2020, especially after the assassination of top Iranian foreign general Qassem Soleimani, on January 3, 2020. The Capital of Iraqi Kurdistan has been hit by Katyusha rockets and drones in the past two years, usually by pro-Iranian Iraqi militia. However, the recent attacks are distinguished by their audacity, targeting residential areas and public roads.

On March 13, the Islamic Republic of Iran fired 12 ballistic missiles at Erbil, demolishing a villa owned by a Kurdish oil tycoon. Iranian state media said Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps attacked Israeli "strategic centers" in Erbil, suggesting it was revenge for recent Israeli air strikes that killed Iranian military personnel in Syria. 

The two IRGC members slain in the Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, were identified as Col. Ehsan Karbalaipur and Col. Morteza Saeednejad. Iranian media claimed that Israeli agents operated in the villa. 

The recent attack came weeks after assassinating IRGC colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari, who has been the highest-profile killing of an Iranian official since the murder of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, in an operation that involved robots, where Israel was blamed for the incident. 

Assailants assassinated Khodayari on motorcycles near was assassinated steps from his home on Tehran's Mohahedin-e Eslam Street. Israeli television channel Kani quoted a security source saying that Tehran was chosen as the center of the attack to ensure that no target could escape Israeli hands. 

Earlier Times of Israel reported that several Israeli intelligence officers in Urmia, East Kurdistan, obtained a confession from a man who intended to carry out several terrorist acts in Turkey and Europe. The man took orders from Khodayari. 

In the Erbil attack, Iran claims to have killed Ilak Ron, believed to be at the top of Israel's assassination unit, known as Kidon. It is possible that Ron is the man who interrogated the Iranian intelligence agent in Urumia. 

Iranian Radio Farda quoted Israeli Wi-Net, saying that the Israeli intelligence agency was aware of Khodayari's plots and had already foiled them. Several terrorist acts against Israelis were planned in Cyprus, Latin America, Africa, and Turkey.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Monday he knew who was involved in the killing and would take revenge soon. The recent attack blamed on pro-Iranian Iraqi militia was an answer to Raisi's calling. 

Although Tehran backs forces in proximity to Israel, such as Hamas, the confrontation between Israel and Iran seems to have shifted from the levant into Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is currently under immense financial and political pressure, both within and without. 

Since 2017 Iran-backed militia have been stationed only kilometers away from Erbil city center. After the failed 2017 independence referendum, the Kurdistan regional government lost 51 percent of the territory it controlled to the Iraqi militia. 

Erbil is home to many Iraqi dissidents and some people who support Israel. An Erbil-based man runs a Facebook page named Levi in Erbil. On September 24, 2021, the first-ever conference for normalization with Israel was held in Erbil.

The Erbil Conference hosted more than 300 Iraqi delegates from all across Iraq, including tribal and religious leaders, who called for the normalization of ties between Baghdad and Tel Aviv following the examples of Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE, and Sudan in 2020.

However, reactions against the conference varied. Muqtada Sadr called for arresting the participants and condemned the meeting.

Shortly after IRGC's ballistic missile attack on Erbil on May 26, the Iraqi council of representatives passed a law criminalizing all relations with Israel and the death penalty for anyone who made such efforts.
 
Israel and Iran have come toe to toe in Erbil. Mossad and Iran's ministry of intelligence are directly engaged, slaying each others' agents and spies. As the prospect of a renewed Iranian nuclear deal with the west is small, the struggle might only intensify.