Baghdad base housing US troops is hit as Iran proxies apply pressure

Three rockets crashed into a base at the Iraqi capital’s airport housing US troops Friday, security sources said, in the latest attack coinciding with tensions between Tehran and Washington.

One of the sources said the projectiles hit the section of the airbase occupied by Iraqi troops, who share the base with soldiers deployed by Washington as part of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.

One Iraqi soldier was wounded, the source added.

It is the second attack on US interests in Iraq in less than a week. On Sunday, five rockets targeted another airbase north of the capital, wounding three Iraqi soldiers and two foreign contractors.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike, but Washington routinely blames Iran-linked Iraqi factions for such attacks on its troops and diplomats. Tehran is also seen by analysts as trying to exert pressure on the US to withdraw its troops from Iran and force concessions in the ongoing talks in Vienna about the Iranian nuclear programme.

Friday’s is the 23rd bomb or rocket attack against American interests in Iraq, including troops, the Baghdad embassy or Iraqi supply convoys to foreign forces, since US President Joe Biden took office in January.

Dozens of other strikes were carried out from autumn 2019 under the administration of former US president Donald Trump.

In mid-April, an explosives-packed drone slammed into Iraq’s Irbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base used by US-led coalition troops in the country, officials said.

In February, more than a dozen rockets targeted the military complex inside the same airport.

In the past year, two foreign contractors, one Iraqi contractor and eight Iraqi civilians have been killed in the attacks.

Read the complete article at: The Arab Weekly

Also Read: Pro-Iran militias in Iraq threaten Israeli interests

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