TEHRAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Tuesday the country's missile strikes on the bases of "terrorists" in Syria and Israel's intelligence service Mossad in Iraq's Kurdistan Region were part of the "just punishment for aggressors."
He made the remarks in a statement published on the Iranian Foreign Ministry's website while elaborating on the reasons for launching ballistic missiles at Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria at 12:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday (2030 GMT Monday).
"The move was in line with defending decisively Iran's sovereignty and security and fighting terrorism and part of the Islamic Republic's just punishment for aggressors against the country's security," said Kanaani.
The spokesman stressed that the country would not hesitate to use its "legitimate and lawful right" to take deterrent action against the sources of threat against its national security, protect its citizens' security, and punish "criminals."
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the attacks in three statements published on the IRGC's official Sepah News portal early Tuesday, describing the operations as responses to recent "terrorist attacks" in the southeastern Iranian provinces of Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan as well as Israel's recent assassinations of Iranian and resistance forces' commanders.
In a separate statement, the IRGC said it had fired 24 ballistic missiles in its strikes on the bases of "terrorists" in Syria and Israel's intelligence service Mossad in Iraq's Kurdistan Region.
Four missiles were fired from the southwestern province of Khuzestan against the IS "Takfiri terrorists' base" in Syria's Idlib, 11 from western and northwestern Iran against the Mossad base in Iraq's Kurdistan region and nine against other "terrorist groups' bases" in the occupied Syrian territories.
Local authorities in Iraq's Kurdistan region said in a statement that four people were killed and six others injured as a result of the missile strikes conducted by the IRGC on Kurdistan's capital city of Erbil.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said on Tuesday that four senior Mossad officials and several senior IS commanders were killed in the IRGC's attacks against the Kurdistan region and Idlib. ■
