Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region suffers as US-Iran war drags on

Erbil, Iraq – For the last five months or so, Iraq’s Kurdistan region has suffered the impact and ramifications of the ongoing United States-Israel war on Iran.

Despite efforts by the government to distance itself and not take sides or allow attacks on Iran from its territories, the repercussions were heavy on the semi-autonomous region and Iraq as a whole.

Since the outbreak of the war in February, hundreds of missiles and drones have hit the Kurdish region.

Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told Al Jazeera the region has ”paid a heavy price” in the war.

”We have been targeted more than 1,000 times by missiles and drones directly from Iran or from inside Iraq by some of the militias. We think these are all unjustifiable attacks on Kurdistan. Unfortunately, we had casualties and we lost people. Many of our infrastructure have been hit badly,” Barzani told Al Jazeera in an interview.

”The regional conflict and the security repercussions led to a 70 percent decrease in trade across the Kurdish region,” he added.

According to KRG data, the attacks hit military and security sites, energy facilities, bases and headquarters of opposition Iranian Kurdish parties, in addition to civilian areas.

A direct casualty of these attacks is the economy: The oil and gas sectors, and the movement of companies and investment. And it comes at a time when the Kurdish region is facing a chronic financial crisis amid ongoing disputes with the federal government in Baghdad over salary payments for state employees, oil sales, and revenues.