Iran launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed nine people in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Wednesday after accusing Kurdish armed groups based there of stoking a wave of unrest that has rocked the Islamic republic.
The September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, while in the custody of Iran's morality police has sparked a major wave of protests and a crackdown that has left scores of demonstrators dead over the past 12 nights.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has in recent days accused the Iraq-based Kurdish groups of "attacking and infiltrating Iran from the northwest of the country to sow insecurity and riots and spread unrest."
After several earlier Iranian cross-border attacks that caused no casualties, a barrage of missiles and drones on Wednesday claimed nine lives and wounded 32, said the regional health minister in Arbil, Saman al-Barazanji, while visiting the wounded in a hospital in the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
"There are civilians among the victims", including one of those killed, a senior official of the Kurdistan region earlier told AFP.
An AFP correspondent reported smoke billowing from locations hit, ambulances racing to the scene and residents fleeing, at Zargwez, about 15km from Sulaimaniyah.
In Baghdad, Iraq's federal government called in the Iranian ambassador to protest the deadly strikes, while the UN mission in Iraq deplored the attack, saying "rocket diplomacy is a reckless act with devastating consequences."
"These attacks need to cease immediately," the UN mission said on Twitter.
The United States said it "strongly condemns" Iran's deadly strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan and warned against further attacks.