Iraqi Officials: No Proof of Mossad Base in Erbil

The house of a Kurdish businessman which was attacked last month with ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
The house of a Kurdish businessman which was attacked last month with ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
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Iraqi Officials: No Proof of Mossad Base in Erbil

The house of a Kurdish businessman which was attacked last month with ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
The house of a Kurdish businessman which was attacked last month with ballistic missiles. (Reuters)

No evidence has been found that supports Tehran's claims that Israel's foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, operated a permanent spy station in the Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq, two Iraqi officials told Asharq al-Awsat on Monday, discussing the country's investigation into a March 13 missile attack by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

The Iraqi officials noted that prior to the attack, Iran had conveyed its anger to the governments in Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, over the presence of Iranian opposition elements in Kurdistan, and only mentioned the Mossad after the attack on a villa belonging to a Kurdish businessman in the city that Tehran alleged also functioned as a Mossad training facility.

As a reminder, Iran said it attacked the structure in response to an airstrike near Damascus, attributed to Israel, in which two high-ranking Revolutionary Guard officers were killed.

“There had been two recent meetings between Israeli and US energy officials and specialists at the villa to discuss shipping Kurdistan gas to Turkey via a new pipeline,” an Iraqi security official said.

One of the Iraqi officials told Asharq al-Awsat that “Iraq asked the Iranian side to back up its claims regarding the Israeli Mossad, but it failed to do so despite Iraq's efforts.”

The other official, who the report said was familiar with the details of the investigation, noted that the Iranian claim about the presence of a Mossad station was insufficient in proving its existence in the area.

The same official, an independent member of parliament, also said that Iran's shift from citing opposition elements to citing the Mossad as their target led the Iraqis to suspect the attack was part of an Iranian "distraction" operation in light of the Iraqi election results at the time.

According to the Iraqi officials, the investigation also ruled out the existence of a permanent Mossad station but did indicate espionage efforts on the part of individuals with European passports operating under the guise of security contractors.

The investigation also pointed to similar espionage operations in cities in central and southern Iraq, as well as in Mosul.

The officials said the alleged spies had been detained and that some of them were awaiting trial.



Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.