Seven rockets tonight targeted the air base where they are parked American soldiersnorth of Baghdad, the latest episode in a series of attacks to which Washington has blamed pro-Iranian factions.
On March 3, an American subcontractor was killed during an attack on another air base, that of Ain al-Assad, in western Iraq.
The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a police recruiting center, killing at least two people.
According to the same source, only two rockets hit the base enclosure, while another five crashed in the nearby village of al-Bou Hassan.
The Katyusha rockets were fired from a village in the neighboring province of Diyala, further east, from where it has been found that rockets have been fired at Balad at other times, he continued.
According to Reuters, citing Iraqi security officials, at least five rockets hit Balad air base without any casualties. The Iraqi military said two more rockets landed outside the air base, damaging a civilian house without any reports of casualties.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for today’s rocket launches, but Washington is pointing the finger at many Iranian-trained and funded militant groups.
Rocket fire has been repeated since mid – February Iraq against American soldiers or the United States embassy.
Rockets landed near the US embassy in Baghdad and others targeted Balad air base, injuring an Iraqi employee of a US F-16 maintenance company.
Rockets also hit a coalition military base at the airport in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, in the north. Two people were killed, including a foreign businessman who worked for the coalition.
Prior to that, and for almost two months, the pro-Iranians had observed a ceasefire that they had unilaterally announced.
U.S. military or diplomatic installations may not have been targeted during that period, but in many cases bombs exploded as Iraqi convoy support convoys formed in 2014 by Washington’s extermination force .
Sworn enemies, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have their own presence or through allies in Iraq.
Washington has deployed about 2,500 troops there, and Iran has, among other things, the support of Hasd al-Saabi, a powerful paramilitary coalition integrated into the Iraqi state, made up mainly of factions armed and funded by Tehran.
And in any deadly attack, Washington threatens to do “whatever it takes” and promises to make Iran pay a heavy price.
Thus, in late February, the US launched a raid against Iraqi pro-Iranian militias in Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 22 Iraqi militias were killed. According to the Pentagon, the raid caused only one death.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that the attack did not have the intended deterrent effect, but said “no one wants an escalation.”
In January 2020, such an escalation almost escalated into an open conflict in Iraq, when Iranian General Qassem Suleimani was killed by a US drone in Baghdad in retaliation for the deaths of Americans in Iraq.
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