US suffers rocket attack on embassy in Iraq
Attacks on US targets in Iraq continue to increase. The US maintains 2,500 troops in the Iraqi country as part of an international coalition fighting the jihadist group Daesh. In recent weeks, the US country has experienced an increase in attacks against its facilities.
As reported by Reuters news agency early on Thursday two rockets were fired at the US embassy inside Baghdad's Green Zone. Sirens sounded throughout the compound and the embassy's anti-rocket system managed to deflect one of the devices while the second landed near the perimeter of the area, security officials told Reuters.
It is the fourth attack on US targets in just two days in both Iraq and Syria. US diplomats and troops were targeted in three rocket and drone attacks on Wednesday. At least two people were injured in the rocket attack on a US base in Iraq in Anbar province. Coalition spokesman Wayne Marotto confirmed the attack on his Twitter account, saying that a total of fourteen shells hit the base and its perimeter.
Earlier in the day, a US military base in Syria's Deir Ezzor province was the target of a drone strike. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement that together with international coalition troops they managed to stop "hostile drone attacks" on the al Al Omar oil field. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack may have come from pro-Iranian groups who launched the drones from a rural area outside the town of Al-Mayadeen, southwest of the oil field.
The US embassy in Iraq reported earlier on Monday that its defence system intercepted and destroyed three rockets aimed at US facilities in Baghdad. Erbil airport in northern Iraq has also been targeted. Just two days ago a drone attacked the airport targeting a US base on the compound.
Although attacks on US facilities in Iraq and Syria are commonplace, such attacks have been increasing in recent weeks, after the US launched several strikes in both Syria and Iraq against pro-Iranian militias on 28 June, killing thirteen people. US State Department spokesman Ned Price, when asked about the increase in violence in Iraq and Syria, said these strikes "are representative of the threat that Iranian-backed militias fundamentally pose to Iraq's sovereignty and stability".
On 28 June, the US launched an offensive against several operational and weapons storage facilities linked to the Kataeb Hezbollah and Kataeb Sayid al-Shuhadlah militias, according to the US Department of Defense. The US statement justified the strikes under the right to self-defence as "these facilities are used by Iranian-backed militias engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq".