Rockets Hit Bases Housing US Forces in Iraq
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Back-to-back rocket attacks hit military bases housing American forces in the north-central Iraqi province of Salahuddin and the vicinity of the Baghdad International Airport.
The first attack targeted the facilities housing the American troops in the Iraqi airbase of al-Balad in Salahuddin on Wednesday, Iraqi media outlets reported, citing the Iraqi Security Information Center.
Five projectiles were fired towards the targets during the incident, some of which landed near F-16 warplane hangars inside the base.
The rocket strike reportedly did not led to any casualties or material damage.
According to the center, “The rockets were fired towards the base from the villages lying around the Tigris River in the neighboring Diyala Province’s al-Khalis District.”
In the early hours of Thursday, an apparent drone attack targeted the US forces’ base near the Baghdad airport with rockets, setting off sirens throughout the facility, Iraq’s al-Sumariya television said.
The channel said an unmanned aerial vehicle that was flying over the facility was destroyed during the incident.
There are no reports yet about any possible human or material losses from the second strike.
On Sunday, a United States-run diplomatic facility in the Iraqi capital and Iraq’s Ain al-Assad Airbase that similarly accommodates American troops in the country came under separate rocket attacks.
Grassroot resentment has been on unprecedented rise across the Arab country since last year, when a US drone attack martyred senior Iranian and Iraqi anti-terror commanders, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Soon after the assassinations, the Iraqi parliament overwhelmingly passed a law demanding full withdrawal of all US-led forces.
Iraqi resistance groups have also vowed to closely pursue the foreign forces’ expulsion as means of restoring the country’s territorial sovereignty and political integrity.