“ Anyone arguing a regional war isn’t already underway in the Middle East is kidding themselves ”

Iranian, Turkish, Houthi missile attacks

Iran carried out a ballistic missile attack in Iraqi Kurdistan and inside Syria on Monday while its proxies in Yemen attacked several more ships off the Yemeni coast over the weekend and through Tuesday. Tehran’s Tasnim news agency carried the government’s claim of responsibility for the Monday attacks in Erbil, Iraq, and Idlib, Syria, and said they fired at least two dozen missiles.

 Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted Kurdish construction and private security magnate Peshraw Dizayee, Middle East analyst Charles Lister said. Dizayee appears to have perished in the attacks, which decimated several buildings, as Tasnim illustrated Tuesday with several social media posts. Iraq’s government condemned the attacks, and promised to investigate.

 ICYMI: Turkey’s military also carried out airstrikes this weekend inside Iraq and Syria. “The defense ministry said that aircraft struck targets in Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in northern Iraq, but didn’t specify areas in Syria,” the Associated Press reported Saturday. That attack followed an assault from Kurdish forces Friday evening on a Turkish base inside Iraq; that assault killed nine Turkish troops.

 Bigger picture: “Anyone arguing a regional war isn’t already underway in the Middle East is kidding themselves,” Lister said on social media, and warning, the situation across the region “could get a lot worse.”