“The drone attacks in Kurdish energy sites grew out of a sequence of drone attacks since 19 June on Kurdish security forces, where Iraqi militias were claiming that Kurdistan was supporting Israeli and US strikes on Iran,” Michael Knights, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, told MEE.

A drone attack halted production at the Sarsang oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Tuesday only hours before its U.S. operator signed a deal to develop another field.

Several oilfields operated by foreign companies in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan have halted production in the past few hours following attacks with explosive-laden drones on infrastructure at the fields.