Six rockets target oil refinery in Iraq’s Irbil

IRBIL, Iraq: Six missiles landed near an oil refinery in Iraq’s northern city of Irbil on Sunday, Kurdistan anti-terrorism authorities said in a statement.
“Six rockets fell near the Zab river in the Khabat district,” Kurdish counter-terrorism forces said in a statement, without specifying the target of the attack.
The missiles were launched from Nineveh province and fell near the KAR refinery, the authorities said without reporting any casualties or damage.
But two sources speaking on condition of anonymity said that two rockets hit part of the Kawergosk refinery northwest of the Kurdish capital Irbil, causing “minor material damage.”
A fire broke out at the site but was “quickly contained,” one of the sources said.
The rocket attack was not immediately claimed.
Nineveh falls under the administration of the federal government in Baghdad. Its capital Mosul was once the stronghold of Daesh before it was retaken by pro-government forces in 2017.
Three missiles also fell near the refinery on April 6, without causing any casualties. Sources in the Kurdistan Regional Government told Reuters then that the refinery is owned by Iraqi Kurdish businessman Baz Karim Barzanji, the CEO of major domestic energy company the KAR Group.
The April rocket fire came less than a month after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — the Islamic republic’s ideological army — claimed ballistic missile fire on Irbil that it said targeted an Israeli “strategic center.”
Kurdish authorities have insisted the Jewish state has no sites in or near Irbil.
In March, Iran attacked Irbil with a dozen ballistic missiles in an unprecedented assault on the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region that appeared to target the United States and its allies. Only one person was hurt in that attack.
(With Reuters and AFP)

Six rockets target oil refinery in Iraq’s Irbil