An explosion on Saturday morning soon exploded near the international airport in Erbil, putting fresh attention on security concerns in the area. A loud boom could be heard by eyewitnesses and an AFP reporter in the vicinity, there was smoke in the sky that quickly rose above the flight center, and heavy smoke at the airport vicinity, sources said.
Erbil, the city of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, is as strategic a city that has a big international airport and a host of major diplomatic and military facilities. However, it is also home to a significant United States consulate complex and facilities of military advisors in a US coalition aimed at defeating extremist groups worldwide.
Although no serious announcement has been given on what cause of the explosion is no longer official, so far only the region in which it was occurred has also experienced similar incidents before. Security experts say pro-Iran armed forces have occasionally targeted locations linked to US and other military bases on the ground by drones or rockets. Most of the aerial threats are intercepted by modern air defense systems before they actually hurt others.
The situation is still not clear on casualties of any significance and other aspects of the blast are also at a very early stage, and we can’t know for sure if there was a drone strike or another kind of attack behind it. Security officials, however, apparently increased their vigilance around and near the airport as a precaution.
The incident has underscored that security across most of Iraq remains fragile -- and geopolitical conflict and international presence still pose threats. Erbil has historically been largely seen as more stable than other areas in Iraq, though random bombings, attacks have revealed that problems persist.
