BAGHDAD — Three rockets were fired at the
US embassy in Iraq early Thursday, the Iraqi army said, at the end of a day marked by
rocket and drone attacks on bases hosting American forces in Iraq and Syria.
اضافة اعلان
The embassy itself was not hit, the army said, but three
nearby places in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone were.
A spate of recent attacks on US military and diplomatic
facilities in Iraq has been blamed on pro-Iranian armed groups within a
state-sponsored paramilitary force.
US forces, who have 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq as part of
an international anti-Daesh group coalition, have been targeted almost 50
times this year in the country, but the last few days have seen an increase in
the frequency of attacks.
On Wednesday, fourteen rockets were fired at an air base
hosting American troops in the western province of Anbar, causing minor
injuries to two personnel, the coalition said.
A Shiite militant group called Revenge of Al-Muhandis
Brigade claimed responsibility and vowed to defeat the "brutal
occupation", according to the US-based SITE intelligence group, which
monitors extremist groups.
The militant group is named after Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis of
Iraq's Hashed Al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance, who was killed in a US drone
strike early last year along with the revered Iranian general Qasem Soleimani,
SITE said.
Late last month, the United States carried out air strikes
against pro-Iran fighters in both Iraq and Syria.
The rockets on Wednesday "landed on the base &
perimeter" of the Ain al-Assad base, coalition spokesman Wayne Marotto
tweeted, adding that local homes and a mosque were also damaged.
Iraqi security forces said the rocket launcher had been
hidden inside a truck carrying bags of flour.
Similar attacks happened earlier this week.
On Monday night, US forces shot down an armed drone above
the embassy, according to Iraqi security officials.
American defense systems fired rockets into the air in the
capital, said AFP reporters, with Iraqi security sources saying the salvos had
taken out an explosive-laden drone.
Just hours earlier, rockets had also been fired towards Ain
Al-Assad.
Asked about the renewed violence, State Department spokesman
Ned Price told reporters: "These attacks reflect and are representative of
the threat that Iran-backed militias present fundamentally to Iraq's
sovereignty and to Iraq's stability."
Across the border in Syria, where pro-Iran fighters have
fought alongside the Damascus regime in the decade-old civil war, Kurdish-led
forces also reported attempted attacks near a coalition base.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said they repelled
drone attacks near the base in the Omar oil field in the country's east, in the
second such operation in days.
"Our frontline forces against Daesh and coalition
forces in the area of the Omar oil field dealt with drone attacks," it
said, adding that the drones had caused no damage.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war
monitor with sources inside Syria, said pro-Iran militias had probably launched
the drones from a rural area outside the town of Al-Mayadeen southwest of the
oil field.
It was the second such attack in days, after the SDF
reported "two unidentified rocket-propelled grenades landed on the western
side of the al-Omar oil field" late Sunday, which caused no casualties.
Pro-Iranian militias also fired several shells at Al-Omar on
Monday last week, causing damage but no casualties, the Observatory said.
The United States had launched air strikes the previous
night against three targets it said were used by pro-Iran groups in eastern
Syria and western Iraq.
The Observatory said at least five "Iran-backed Iraqi
militia fighters" were killed in the strikes on the Syrian side of the
border.
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