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At least two rockets hit near US embassy in Baghdad: witnesses by Staff Writers Baghdad (AFP) Jan 5, 2020 Two rockets hit near the US embassy in Iraq's capital Sunday, witnesses told AFP, hours after the ambassador was summoned over a US strike that killed top Iraqi and Iranian commanders. Sunday's attack was the second night in a row that the Green Zone was hit and the 14th time over the last two months that US installations have been targeted. A third rocket simultaneously hit a family home outside the Green Zone, wounding four, medical sources told AFP. Ties between Iraq and the US have deteriorated after an American drone attack Friday on the Baghdad international airport that killed Iran's Major General Qasem Soleimani and top Iraqi military figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The precision strike came just days after a pro-Iran mob attacked the US embassy in Baghdad. In response on Sunday, Iraq's parliament called on the government to oust US and other foreign troops from the country. Some 5,200 US soldiers are stationed across Iraqi bases to support local troops preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State jihadist group. They are deployed as part of the broader international coalition, invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 to help fight IS. Sunday's rocket attack came hours after a deadline by a hardline group in Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi military force, which has close ties to Iran, for Iraqi security forces to "get away" from US troops at joint bases across Iraq.
Missiles hit Green Zone and Iraq base housing US troops: security sources The precision drone strike outside the Baghdad airport on Friday killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, top Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and a clutch of other Iranian and Iraqi figures. In Baghdad, mortar rounds on Saturday evening hit the Green Zone, the high-security enclave where the US embassy is based, security sources said. The Iraqi military said that one projectile hit inside the zone, while another landed close to the enclave. Sirens rang out at the US compound, sources there told AFP. A pair of Katyusha rockets then hit the Balad airbase north of Baghdad, where American troops are based, security sources and the Iraqi military said. Security sources there reported blaring sirens and said surveillance drones were sent above the base to locate the source of the rockets. The US embassy in Baghdad as well as the 5,200 American troops stationed across the country have faced a spate of rocket attacks in recent months that Washington has blamed on Iran and its allies in Iraq. One attack last month killed a US contractor working in northern Iraq, prompting retaliatory American air strikes that killed 25 hardline fighters close to Iran. Tensions boiled over on Friday when the US struck Soleimani's convoy as it drove out of the airport and US diplomats and troops across Iraq had been bracing themselves for more rocket attacks.
Elite Iraqi troops secure US embassy after attack Baghdad (AFP) Jan 2, 2020 Elite Iraqi troops deployed to secure the US embassy Thursday, a day after a pro-Iran mob laid siege to it in dramatic scenes that overshadowed months of anti-government grassroots protests. The unprecedented attack on the American mission in Baghdad - in which intruders threw rocks, laid fires and graffitied walls - sparked fears of a wider proxy war between Iran and the United States, both of them close allies of Iraq. Supporters of Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi military force laid siege ... read more
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