Drones targeted sites in the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah early Friday, triggering fresh explosions and highlighting the continued security instability across the country’s Kurdish Region.

Axar.az reports, citing Anadolu Agency, that the latest attacks come as northern Iraq continues to grapple with a deepening fuel crisis triggered by earlier strikes that disrupted energy production, leaving motorists waiting hours at filling stations, slashing electricity supplies and driving up cooking gas prices.

Across Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok, motorists are spending hours outside filling stations, with some waiting overnight, as fuel shortages continue to ripple through the region. Electricity supplies have also been severely disrupted, while cooking gas prices have surged amid dwindling supplies.

The crisis followed attacks by Iran and Iran-backed groups on Erbil and Sulaymaniyah that forced energy companies operating in the Kurdish Region to suspend production, cutting fuel supplies and choking off natural gas deliveries to power plants.