Iran Denies Firing Missile at Turkey as Crisis Spills Beyond Middle East

Two Iranian drones fell into Azerbaijan on Thursday, and more Iranian strikes were reported in Israel and Iraq, the latest signs of a broadening regional conflict that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran last week.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said that the two drones had landed in Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave on Iran’s northern border, injuring two civilians.
Israel and Iran continued to trade blows in the conflict, which has killed hundreds so far, mainly in Iran. The Israeli military announced another wave of strikes on Tehran and on Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure overnight, as well as on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon. Iran launched a new wave of ballistic missiles at Israel on Thursday morning, the military said. One Iranian drone shot down by Israeli air defenses crashed in southern Syria, according to Syrian state media.
Iran struck again at pro-American Kurdish forces in neighboring Iraq, hitting a base belonging to one of the groups, the Komala Party, according to an official from the group who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Iran for days has targeted the Kurdish forces, which it views as terrorist groups, as Iraqi officials and senior members of the forces say they are preparing armed units that could enter Iran.
Iran’s intelligence ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Iranian forces had inflicted “heavy losses” and destroyed facilities belonging to “separatist terrorist groups” on Iran’s western border.
Iran has said its strikes, begun in retaliation to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, are in self-defense. But the targets Iran has hit in the Gulf in recent days have included American embassies, energy installations, airports and resort hotels.
Iran on Thursday denied Turkey’s claim that it had fired a missile toward Turkish airspace a day earlier. Turkey said on Wednesday that NATO had shot down the missile.
Meanwhile, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, accused the United States of an “atrocity at sea” after a torpedo launched from a U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The frigate had recently taken part in a naval exercise hosted by India. Dozens of sailors were killed, the Sri Lankan authorities said.