Family house destroyed in Rawanduz village, leaving a three-metre crater

ERBIL — A house in Mawilian village in Rawanduz district was destroyed overnight, leaving a crater about three metres deep, on the second consecutive night of explosions in the Kurdistan Region. Nobody was hurt because the family was not there.

Residents heard a loud explosion in the night before finding the house destroyed along with its contents. Hogir Tahsin, the owner, told 964media he did not know what had hit it and was told early on Tuesday that the property had been struck. His family keeps a garden there and comes several times a week to water it.

Kurdistan Region security authorities have not said what struck the house or who was responsible. Unlike other sites hit this year, it has no evident military or political value.

Five drones came down across Sulaymaniyah and Halabja in the early hours of Monday, three of them striking a Komala site at Zargwezalla at about 3:10 a.m., with explosions heard widely enough to wake residents in both governorates.

The Region has been hit repeatedly this year at security and energy sites, diplomatic facilities and camps of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. Coalition aircraft shot down 10 bomb-laden drones over Erbil on Sept. 2, and two drones struck the private office of Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the home of the head of the Parastin intelligence agency in mid-August, which Barzani blamed on Iran. Community Peacemaker Teams–Iraqi Kurdistan documented 751 attacks across the Region between late February and late May before the June ceasefire, attributing them to Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi groups, with 22 people killed and 112 wounded.