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U.S. and Iraqi diplomats and troops have spoken out against three rocket and drone attacks in the past 24 hours, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Wednesday, killing at least 14 Iraqi rockets at a U.S. air base taking U.S. forces, and wounding two members of U.S. services. .
While responsibility for the attacks was not immediately claimed — part of a wave aimed at U.S. troops or sites deployed in Iraq and Syria — analysts believed they were part of a campaign by Iranian-backed armed groups.
U.S. forces, as part of the international coalition against ISIL (ISIS), have deployed 2,500 troops in Iraq, targeting them nearly 50 times this year, but the frequency of attacks has increased in recent days. .
Iraqi armed groups aligned with Iran have promised revenge after last month’s attacks on the U.S. border in Iraq and Syria killed four of their members.
Two people were lightly injured in a rocket fired at Ain al-Assad air base in western Iraq, U.S. Army Colonel Colonel spokesman Wayne Marotto said. The rockets landed at the base and its perimeter. He first said three people were injured.
Commenting after Thursday’s development, Wayne said that each attack harms the “authority of Iraqi institutions” and sovereignty.
Each attack on the GoI, KRI and the Coalition undermines the authority of Iraqi institutions, the rule of law and Iraq’s national sovereignty. These attacks endanger the lives of Iraqi civilians and forces members of the ISF, Peshmerga and the Coalition.
– OIR spokesperson Wayne Marotto (@OIRSpox) July 8, 2021
U.S. officials said they spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity and said the two injured workers were members of the U.S. service. One took the blow and the other had minor cuts, one of the officials added.
Two rockets were fired at the U.S. embassy in the Baghdad Green Zone early Thursday, Iraqi security sources told Reuters.
The embassy’s anti-rocket system deflected one of the rockets, one source said – a security official with an office in the Green Zone. Security officials said the second rocket crashed near the perimeter of the area.
Sources said the sirens shouted from the embassy inside the area, which houses government buildings and foreign missions.
In Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had done no damage to drone strikes at the Al Omar oil field in the eastern area of Iraq’s border, when U.S. forces entered under a rocket but fled on June 28.
“It simply came to our notice then [ISIL] and coalition forces around the Omar oil field faced drone strikes, ”the Kurdish-led SDF said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war controller with sources in Syria, said pro-Iran groups were likely to have dropped drones from a rural area outside the town of Al-Mayaden south of the oil field southwest.
It was the second attack in recent days, after the SDF reported late Sunday that “two grenades fired by unidentified rockets landed west of the al-Omar oil field”, which left no casualties.
The Pentagon also said a drone was shot down in eastern Syria and that no members of the U.S. service were injured and that no damage was done.
Meanwhile, Iraqi military officials have said that the pace of recent attacks on bases involving U.S. forces with rockets and drone-filled drones is unprecedented.
Iraqi military sources said they used a rocket launcher fixed to the back of a truck in Wednesday’s attack and found it in nearby agricultural lands that caught fire.
On Tuesday, a drone struck Erbil Airport in northern Iraq, targeting a U.S. base in the airport’s territory, Kurdish security sources said.
Three rockets also landed in Ain Al-Assad on Monday without causing any casualties.
Asked about the renewed violence, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, “These attacks reflect and are a threat posed by Iran-backed militias at the core of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi stability.”
To increase ‘green light’
The United States has been conducting indirect talks with Iran, with the two nations once again focused on fulfilling the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was suspended by then-President Donald Trump. No date has been set for the next round of talks, which was suspended on June 20.
Hamdi Malik, an associate member of the Washington Institute and a specialist in Iraqi Shia armed groups, told Reuters that attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have intensified.
The attempt to strike in eastern Syria was the first example of operations being carried out jointly in the two countries.
“It seems to me that they have a green light from Iran, especially that nuclear negotiations are not going well. But at the same time, they don’t want to increase more than a certain point – US airstrikes are weaker than before and they don’t want to complicate Iran’s negotiations with the West. “. he said.
The U.S. last week told the United Nations Security Council that it had carried out airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq to carry out or protect them and Tehran from further attacks on U.S. personnel or facilities.
Iran has denied attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and condemned U.S. airstrikes on Iranian-backed groups.
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