Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRG) claimed responsibility for missile attacks on an Israeli "spy headquarters". Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee and four of his family members were killed in the attack on their home on January 16 near the US Consulate in Erbil, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR).
Dizayee was the owner of the Falcon Group, which is a business involved in oil and gas, agriculture and security. The IRG claimed its missiles targeted a "Mossad headquarters".
"No US facilities were impacted. We're not tracking damage to infrastructure or injuries at this time," a US official said in response to the recent attack.
Prime Minister of the IKR, Masrour Barzani, condemned the IRG attacks on Erbil.
The Oil business in Erbil
The oil business is thriving in IKR, and the Falcon Group was part of it. Kurdish oil has been exported to Israel, Italy, France and Greece through a secretive trade depending on pre-pay deals.
Israel buys much of its oil from Erbil, and Israel depends on the heavily discounted crude, making it a key customer. The oil is discounted to Israel because it is free, as the source is the stolen Syrian oil. 40% of Israel's oil supplies were from IKR in the first three months of 2023, which doubled the amount in 2022.
Israel received its first substantial seaborne crude oil shipment from the IKR in 2014, which is the same time the US occupation forces arrived in Syria. Israel was reportedly importing as much as three-quarters of its crude oil needs from the IKR by mid-2015.
Israeli refineries and oil companies imported almost $1 billion worth of Kurdish oil between May and August of 2023, according to shipping data, trading sources and satellite tanker tracking, which represents about 77 % of average Israeli demand, which runs at roughly 240,000 barrels per day. More than a third of all of the northern Iraqi exports, which are shipped from Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, went to Israel over the period.
According to anonymous sources, it was a Mossad agent who first traveled to Erbil to negotiate the deal to buy oil from IKR, which was facilitated by US officials.
The US Consulate in Erbil
The new US Consulate General building in Erbil, near the attack carried out by Iran, is the biggest consulate complex built by the US. Embassies and Consulates are under the US State Department, but the consulate in Erbil has a connection to the US Department of Defense, demonstrating the strategic importance of the region for Washington, with a US military base also in IKR.
Irvin Hicks, Jr., the US Consul General in Erbil, stated in January 2023, that the new 800-million-dollar consulate building is a clear statement that the "United States of America is not going anywhere".
The US first opened a diplomatic office in Erbil in February 2007, and later upgraded to a consulate general in 2011, the same year the US-NATO attack on Syria began for regime change, under the Obama-Biden administration.
The US embassy in Baghdad was built in 2009 and is its biggest mission compound in the world at a cost of $750 million. Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi central government in Baghdad operate separately, as the Kurds are a semi-autonomous region.
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