Drone on Erbil, Crosetto: 'Deliberate attack'. Italia trains Kurdish forces at this base
To date, Italia personnel (300 military personnel) have trained around 50,000 members of the MoPA and the Kurdish Interior Ministry
by Andrea Carli
Key points
A drone hit the Italian military base in Erbil, Iraq. This was confirmed by Defence Minister Guido Crosetto. "As far as we learn, there are no injuries among the Italian military, nor are there any injuries among Italian personnel. They are all fine," he said. "Firm condemnation" for the attack came from Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani who spoke to the ambassador of Italia in Iraq. "Fortunately, our soldiers are all well and are safe in the bunker". According to informed sources, the drone, an Iranian-made shahed, may not have been headed inside the base but lost altitude, crashing into a military vehicle. The Italian contingent was unharmed and currently remains in the bunker.
'Absolutely yes, that is a NATO base and it is also American,' Crosetto told Tg1 when asked whether last night's attack was deliberate. We had already warned of the possibility (of the attack, ed) and from half past eight we had implemented all the security conditions, so everyone had entered the protected areas, so there was no damage to the contingent'.
"We," the minister added, "have already sent 102 people back to Italia from that mission, we have moved about 40 to Jordan, and of the current 141 we were already planning a return, which is not easy, because it is not possible to send a plane, so it has to be by land, probably via Turkey".
"The drone impacted inside the base causing damage to infrastructure and materials that cannot be quantified at the moment, while there was no damage to people. From the moment of the incident, the Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, and the Chief of Staff, Luciano Portolano, have been in constant contact and express their closeness to all the men and women of the contingent," said the commander of the Italian contingent in the Erbil base, Stefano Pizzotti, commander of the Italian National Contingent Command Lande. "We are tired but morale remains high. The personnel are trained to deal with these situations as well, keeping in mind that the safety of the personnel remains the top priority," Pizzotti added.
