Large explosions heard in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, according to Nour News

Nour News is affiliated with Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which itself shapes the framing and is a tell about the presumed source. Episodes of this kind in Iraqi Kurdistan have tended to follow a familiar sequence: initial unconfirmed reports, competing attribution claims, then a statement from one of the regional actors, with the market-relevant distinction being whether the strike touches energy infrastructure or US-linked facilities versus isolated militant or political targets. Past episodes confined to the Kurdish region have produced only brief risk-premium moves in crude, since the north's export flows through the Turkey pipeline have already been disrupted for an extended period on separate legal and payment disputes, leaving limited incremental supply at risk. Escalation risk historically rests on whether Baghdad responds diplomatically and whether any follow-on strikes widen the geographic scope. Worth noting is the pattern that single-source flash reports of this kind are frequently revised or clarified within hours, so the first confirmed attribution carries more weight than the initial headline.