Rockets target Khor Mor gas field in Iraq’s Kurdistan, operations not affected

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) -At least eight Katyusha rockets were fired at the Khor Mor gas field in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Wednesday, but the attack did not result in casualties or affect the operations, sources said.

The rockets fell in the vicinity of the field, security and local Kurdish sources said. Khor Mor is in the Sulaimaniya region of northern Iraq and was attacked previously.

The Pearl Consortium, United Arab Emirates energy firm Dana Gas and its affiliate, Crescent Petroleum, have the rights to exploit Khor Mor and Chemchemal, two of the biggest gas fields in Iraq.

“The attack didn’t result in any casualties, and operation is normal within the field. Investigations are ongoing by security forces at the moment,” Lawk Ghafuri, Head of Foreign Media Affairs for the Kurdistan regional government said on Twitter.

A local commander from Hashid Shaabi, a state-run umbrella that includes Shi’ite militias, said they found a rocket launcher with a timer fixed on top of a mini-truck in a rural area around 20 km (15 miles) to the southwest of Khor Mor.

At least eight Katyusha rounds were fired from the launcher, which carried 12 rockets. Four unfired rockets had been found inside the launcher, said the local commander.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the previous series of attacks on Khor Mor, Kurdish officials said publicly they believed they were carried out by Iranian-backed militias.

(Reporting by Ali Sultan and Ahmed Rasheed; Additional reportong by Maha El-Dahan and Amina Ismail; Writing by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast)