Footage shows a suicide drone that crashed in Erbil province's Khabat on July 28, 2025. Photo: Submitted

Footage shows a suicide drone that crashed in Erbil province's Khabat on July 28, 2025. Photo: Submitted

KurdistanJuly 28, 2025

Suicide drone targets Erbil; no casualties

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An explosive-laden drone crashed in Erbil’s western Khabat district on Monday morning, resulting in no casualties, Kurdish counterterrorism forces reported. 

“On Monday morning at 05:50, an explosive-laden drone crashed in the Rizgari subdistrict of Khabat district in Erbil province,” said the Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD), also known as Kurdistan CT.

No casualties were reported. 

The Kurdistan Region has come under nearly 20 rocket and drone attacks in recent weeks, including strikes on its oil fields. The Kurdish government has blamed Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) for the attacks - charges strongly denied as “unacceptable” by Baghdad. 

The Khabat district is the site of the Kawergosk oil refinery, one of the largest in the Kurdistan Region, operated by the Iraqi-Kurdish oil company KAR Group. 

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The drone strikes have greatly reduced the Kurdistan Region’s oil output, especially at a time when Kurdish oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline - halted since March 2023 - are on the brink of resumption. 

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations, as well as several other international and local actors, have condemned the attacks. Baghdad has launched an investigation but has yet to announce the results, and last week’s extraordinary Iraqi parliament session failed to discuss the matter after Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the sitting. 
 

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