Missiles from Iran strike near U.S. Consulate in northern Iraq, officials say

Ghafuri said some of the strikes had landed near a sprawling U.S. compound where a new consulate building is under construction. It was unclear whether that location was specifically targeted.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attacks in Irbil as “outrageous.” No U.S. troops were injured by the strikes in Irbil, according to an initial assessment provided by a senior defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. U.S. military and intelligence personnel operate at a complex at Irbil’s international airport.

In a statement, a State Department official said no U.S. government buildings were damaged and no Americans hurt. The Pentagon deferred questions to the State Department, which did not immediately respond to them.

The attack in Irbil that “spread fear amongst its inhabitants is an attack on the security of our people,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said on Twitter.

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, of which Irbil is the capital, described the attack as “cowardly.”

“I strongly condemn the terrorist attack on Irbil and call on its resilient people to keep calm and follow the guidance of the security services,” he wrote on Twitter.

No photographs of the blast site were immediately available.

Inside the offices of the nearby Kurdistan 24 television channel, a newsroom and television studio were damaged, images showed, and employees crunched through glass to assess how much of the building had been affected.

The strikes resembled attacks carried out by Iran directly or through military groups it backs. They came at a sensitive time for Iraqi politics and a pivotal moment in the United States’ relationship with Iran.

In Baghdad and Irbil, delicate and drawn-out negotiations over who will form the country’s new government appear to be drawing to a close. Iran, traditionally a kingmaker, has struggled to assert itself over the process as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has tried to exclude its allies, Iraqi officials and analysts say.

Irbil’s ruling Kurdish Democratic Party is one of Sadr’s major partners in that effort. In a statement posted to Twitter early Sunday, the cleric urged “forbearance until the achievement of a national majority government.”

On the international stage, talks between the United States and Iran aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal between both nations were suspended indefinitely earlier this week after Russia, another participant, sought concessions related to its commercial dealings with Tehran.

Disagreements between the United States and Iran likely contributed to the setback, officials have said, including over the extent to which the Biden administration is willing to drop terrorism designations for the Revolutionary Guard Corps and other groups, as well as terms for an expected prisoner exchange.

Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran have frequently launched rocket and drone strikes on U.S.-linked targets in Iraq and Syria. A spate of attacks in January did not cause casualties among U.S. service members and were clustered around the second anniversary of a U.S. decision to assassinate revered Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike as his convoy left Baghdad’s airport.

Although U.S. officials initially claimed that attack had legal basis, citing Soleimani’s alleged role in imminent attack planning, no further evidence was provided, and the strike pushed Washington and Tehran to the brink of war on Iraqi soil.

That operation triggered an Iranian ballistic missile attack on an Iraqi air base, with dozens of U.S. troops suffering brain injuries. The strike on Soleimani’s convoy sparked outrage in Iraq, prompting parliament to urge the expulsion of U.S. forces as street protesters decried the role of Washington and Tehran in turning their country into a proxy battleground.

Horton reported from Washington.