Drone and rocket strikes killed nine members of an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Friday, the exiled party said, blaming the attack on Iran.

In Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, rebels shot down several drones, the group said, and Agence France-Presse journalists heard loud explosions in the city.

The Kurdish government also blamed the attacks on Tehran.

Idriss Kohlwazi from the exiled Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan told AFP the strikes killed nine members of their party at their camp near the city of Sulaimaniyah.

Qatar's interior ministry said in a statement that it "strongly condemns the Iranian attack on Iraq's Kurdistan region, considering it a blatant violation of the sovereignty" of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. 

During the war, the Kurdistan region, which hosts U.S. troops and foreign oil companies as well as exiled Iranian Kurdish rebels, has been a target for attacks carried out by Iran and pro-Iran Iraqi armed groups.

Even after a ceasefire was announced in April, Iran continued to strike Kurdish opposition groups, which Tehran accuses of serving both Western and Israeli interests.

But Friday's attack marked the biggest escalation, with these groups having mostly evacuated their bases and camps since the war.

In early March, as the war was unfolding, President Trump said it would be "wonderful" if Iranian Kurds based in Iraq joined the war against the Tehran regime. 

"I think it's wonderful that they would want to do that. I'd be all for it," Mr. Trump told Reuters at the time.