ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Two bomb-laden drones targeted the Khurmala oil field in Erbil on Monday evening, marking yet another episode in a series of drone attacks that have taken place across the Kurdistan Region in recent weeks.

A statement released by the Region’s Directorate General of Counter Terrorism said, “At 20:20 and 20:25, two bomb-laden drones crashed in the Khurmala oil field in Erbil province. Fortunately, no casualties resulted from them.”

An employee at the oil field earlier told The New Region that personnel had witnessed smoke rising from the area, with another local resident claiming to have seen both drones and heard loud booms.

The Kurdistan Region's Ministry of Natural Resources noted that the field's water piplelines were damaged in the attack.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said in a statement that "coordination is underway with the security and intelligence forces in the Kurdistan Region to investigate the circumstances of this attack," also noting that only "material damage" was inflicted.

A series of aerial attacks by unidentified actors have targeted the Kurdistan Region and Kirkuk since late June, coming days after the declaration of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

A suicide drone was shot down over Erbil International Airport in the early hours of Monday morning, with prior attacks having targeted airports in Erbil and Kirkuk

On two separate occasions, drones were intercepted in the vicinity of the Peshmerga's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-affiliated Unit 70 headquarters in Sulaimani. 

No actor has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The attacks have sparked tensions between Erbil and Baghdad, with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) decrying the federal authorities’ silence amid the ongoing strikes.

In a statement last week, the KRG’s interior ministry denied reports by Iran-affiliated media claiming that an alleged Israeli base in Erbil was the target of one of the attacks, calling them “far from the truth,” and accusing the groups affiliated with the Iraqi state-linked Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) of being behind the recent aerial attacks.

Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, responded to the KRG statement, saying that any accusation “against an official Iraqi security institution is unacceptable, condemned, and unacceptable under any pretext.” 

“The expectation from the relevant parties of the federal government is that when there are threats against the Kurdistan Region or any other area of Iraq, necessary measures should be taken to reveal the truth and prevent the recurrence of threats and punish the perpetrators. Unfortunately, however, we feel there is a kind of cover-up and hiding from responsibility regarding the security excesses that are carried out against the Kurdistan Region,” said the KRG interior ministry in a second statement.

Since 2022, Iran and its proxies have carried out several attacks on the Kurdistan Region under the pretext of targeting bases of Israeli intelligence (Mossad). Erbil has repeatedly denied the presence of Israeli bases in the Region.

Many PMF groups are backed by Iran.