Iran’s Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, said that “the American claims that the Iranian march was destroyed proves their complicity and cooperation with terrorists and separatists”, stressing that “if the Americans oppose Iranian drones, the Iranian armed forces will respond to this hostile act.”

And the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that they had “launched an attack that included rocket attacks and military marches on the headquarters of terrorist organizations hostile to the government and regime in Iraqi Kurdistan,” explaining that “the strikes against terrorist separatist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan appeared after the interference of these groups in the recent unrest in Iran.

In this regard, US State Department spokesman Vidanth Patel said: “We can confirm that an American was killed in a missile attack on Iraqi Kurdistan, and we continue to condemn Iran’s violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq.”

Asked about the possibility of retaliatory measures, Patel said that “the US has a number of means, a number of efforts to hold Iran responsible for destabilizing actions in the region.”