Missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles fired at the U.S. base are neutralized at Erbil International Airport in Erbil, Iraq, on February 28, 2026. (Photo by Ahsan Mohammed Ahmed Ahmed/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Anadolu via Getty Images

Iraqi Kurdistan got a much-needed respite on Wednesday. Since the start of the Iran war on February 28 until the ceasefire late on Tuesday, the autonomous region has found itself subjected to hundreds of drone and missile attacks by Iran and its Iraqi militia proxies. The majority, though not all, of these attacks were intercepted by an array of air defense systems installed by the United States and Britain on the airport grounds of the capital, Erbil.

Throughout the 39-day conflict, residents of Erbil heard daily explosions, most of them the result of interceptions high above their heads. The sound of the interceptors varied; some were clearly surface-to-air missiles. The most distinct was undoubtedly the C-RAM (counter-Rocket, artillery, and mortar) system, which lit up the sky in dazzling displays when fired at incoming drones at night.

The local Rudaw Media Network recorded a total of 703 drones and missiles launched at Iraqi Kurdistan during the war, killing 17 and injuring 92. Most of these were drones launched by Iran-backed Iraqi militias from federal Iraqi territory at the U.S. troop base on the grounds of Erbil International Airport, where they were met by the coalition air defenses.

“Air defenses currently deployed in the Kurdistan Region do not belong to the region’s armed forces, also known as the Peshmerga,” Ceng Sagnic, chief of analysis at the geopolitical consultancy firm TAM-C Solutions and U.S. Director of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), told me.

“However, it is fair to say that parts of the capital, Erbil, were spared from inevitable impacts by projectiles fired from Iran and from within Iraq while these systems were activated to defend U.S. forces.”

These systems undoubtedly saved lives in the capital. Even outside the city, they reportedly intercepted drones and missiles targeting Iranian Kurdish dissident groups.

However, these systems certainly did not provide blanket coverage or protection over the entire landlocked region and its inhabitants.

“Casualties across Erbil since the start of the war, along with successful drone attacks against the residences of several local leaders, including President Nechirvan Barzani, show that the use of these systems is not coordinated with the local government,” Sagnic said.

“They are therefore focused solely on protecting foreign assets,” he added. “This is a major defensive flaw for the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government), as well as for its Western partners.”

Additionally, an Iranian drone attack killed a French soldier and injured six others on March 12. They were deployed at a base near Erbil as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group. Iranian ballistic missiles killed six Peshmerga and injured 30 more in Erbil province’s Soran on March 24, and one of those wounded succumbed to severe injuries on Tuesday. Yet another drone attack on a village approximately 27 miles outside of Erbil city early Tuesday killed a married couple while they were asleep in their bed. There were no discernible military targets in their vicinity.

Other civilian houses and areas were targeted or damaged by falling debris in Erbil and elsewhere. The militias even targeted hotels.

Still, without these air defenses, it’s most likely Erbil in particular would’ve suffered far greater casualties and fatalities.

Alex Almeida, a security analyst at the political risk consultancy Horizon Engage, outlined the systems involved and their role in countering these hundreds of attacks. He estimates that the “bulk of intercepts” during the first weeks of the war were countered by small U.S. Raytheon Coyote rail-launched counter-drone aircraft systems, which have kinetic and non-kinetic variants. These were augmented by British Rapid Sentry systems, which intercepted an estimated 50 Iranian-made drones during the war’s first three weeks. MIM-104 Patriot missiles handled incoming Iranian short-range and close-range ballistic missiles launched by militias. Meanwhile, on the lower-tier, the C-RAM engages any drones that evaded the Coyote and what Almedia dubbed the “missile-based SHORAD (short-range air defense) screen.”

“Over the last two weeks or so, it looks like C-RAM is being used more frequently, possibly because the Iranians are mixing in some fast jet-engined drones that the Coyote system has difficulty intercepting with the waves of prop-driven Shahed-101s,” Almeida told me.

“More recently, we’ve also seen some intercepts that look like they’re from Ukrainian-derived U.S. interceptor drone systems.”

These more cost-effective systems contrast with the Gulf states’ air defenses, which are much more sophisticated than those in Iraqi Kurdistan. The United Arab Emirates, for example, has a world-class multilayered air defense system with systems and capabilities second only to Israel in the region. Nevertheless, it still struggled at times during the war, especially in intercepting Shahed drones cost-effectively.

“The relatively inexpensive defensive setup in Kurdistan appears to have delivered better results than its costly counterparts in the Gulf,” Sagnic said. “But that is largely due to the irony that the scale and nature of drone use in the conflict have rendered expensive systems a questionable investment of limited resources.”

“Otherwise, the current anti-drone capacity in the Kurdistan Region falls short of adequately protecting the capital, whether against random attacks or targeted drone assassinations.”

Almeida contrasted the air defense setup in Erbil with those fielded by the Gulf states. The former were set up from the start to defend against “a high-low mix of conventional heavy ballistic missile strikes and slow, low-flying drones” of the kind that have persistently threatened the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan for several years preceding the Iran war.

“Gulf defenses were focused almost exclusively on the high-end ballistic missile threat, which forced them to rely heavily on the Patriots and helicopter and fast air combat air patrols to handle incoming drones, which really is a kind of overkill,” Almeida said.

“One-way interceptor drones like those Ukraine has developed are much more cost-effective and tailored specifically to countering massed drone attacks.”

Months before the Iran war, the U.S. had withdrawn all of its troops from federal Iraqi provinces, where they were previously targeted by these Iran-backed militias, and reconsolidated in Erbil. The withdrawal was conducted under an agreement with the Iraqi government to wrap up the anti-Islamic State coalition mission they were initially deployed for in 2014. Under that agreement, the remaining U.S.-led forces are scheduled to leave Iraqi Kurdistan by September.

Sagnic estimates that the U.S. coalition withdrawal from Iraq “is likely to proceed as planned” with only some potential delays resulting from “bureaucratic friction” between Washington and Baghdad.

“The war with Iran is unlikely to alter the timeline unless the conflict continues beyond the expiration of the truce,” he said. “Unlike the ISIS war, no U.S. or coalition bases in Iraq were used to strike Iran or to defend U.S. allies in the Gulf or Israel.”

“U.S. forces in Iraq primarily protected themselves from incoming attacks, which may reinforce the perception in Washington that their presence is more a liability than a strategic extension.”

Therefore, Sagnic expects the Trump administration to aim to “reduce these liabilities” in order to prevent further U.S. casualties if there is renewed escalation with Iran.

Nevertheless, he anticipates that “exceptions may be made for the Kurdistan Region, contingent on the success of Erbil’s diplomatic efforts.”

Horizon Engage’s Almeida doesn’t see U.S. forces packing up and leaving, at least for now.

“At this point, it’s hard to see the Coalition pulling out later this year,” he said. “It’s more likely that both the Trump administration and the KRG leadership will double down on the U.S.-Kurdistan security relationship now that the government in Baghdad is potentially seen as fatally compromised by militia influence.”