TEHRAN  -  Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Mon­day launched ballistic missiles at what it said was a spy base for Israel’s intel­ligence agency Mossad in northern Iraq, and at “anti-Iran terror groups” in Syria, in the latest escalation of hos­tilities that further risks spiraling into a wider regional conflict. The strikes were condemned by the United States as “reckless” and imprecise.

Iranian forces said the midnight missile strike in Iraq destroyed “one of the main espionage headquarters” of Israel in Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, in re­sponse to what they said were Israeli attacks that killed Iranian Revolution­ary Guard commanders and members of the Iranian resistance front.

“This headquarters has been the center for developing espionage op­erations and planning terrorist acts” in the region and Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement Monday.

CNN has reached out to Israel’s Prime Minister’s office for comment on the IRGC’s claim. The IRGC also said it struck several locations in Erbil and claimed to target “sites of Iranian opposition groups.” At least four civilians were killed and six oth­ers injured in the attack, according to a statement early Tuesday by the Security Council of the Kurdistan re­gion. A large villa belonging to a well-known Kurdish businessman was also destroyed, according to a CNN journalist in the region. There were unconfirmed reports of casualties at the residential property though it is not known if the building was an intended target. “This blatant viola­tion undermines the sovereignty of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq,” the Security Council said in its statement, which accused Iran of employing baseless pretexts to attack Erbil, a historically stable region that it said had never posed a threat to any party.

Also on Monday, the IRGC said it fired ballistic missiles at bases of “anti-Iran terror groups in occupied territories of Syria.” It claimed the tar­gets were involved in the recent dual bombings in the city of Kerman during a memorial for the slain Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani that left scores dead and wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly twin blasts near Soleimani’s burial site, in what was the deadliest attack in Iran since its 1979 revolution.