Iran reports US strikes around Hormuz, Qeshm Island; Iranian Kurdish dissident group in Iraq hit by drone

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reports that an area near Sirik, on the Strait of Hormuz, was targeted around 1:30 a.m. local time, citing local authorities in southern Hormozgan province.

A location near Hajiabad, in the same province, was also targeted, and explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, according to IRNA. An area near Qeshm Island, inside the strait, was also targeted, according to Iran’s state-run broadcaster, IRIB.

In neighboring Iraq, a base of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, an Iranian Kurdish dissident group, near Irbil was struck by a drone early Sunday, wounding eight of its members, Rebaz Sharifi, a military official with the group, says.

Residents of Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, also heard explosions from air defenses early Sunday.

Irbil has been targeted by drone attacks multiple times over the past four days, which coincided with a visit by new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to Washington last week and an ongoing escalation between the U.S. and Iran.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but in the past, both Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi militias have launched attacks in the Kurdish region, where both US troops and armed Kurdish Iranian dissident groups are present.