ANUSHKA PATHAK – Mumbai Uncensored, 15 January 2022
Four rockets targeted the US embassy in Baghdad’s highly secured Green Zone on Thursday (January 13, 2022), two Iraqi security officials said.
The embassy is located in the ultra-secure Green Zone of Baghdad, which also houses parliament and other government offices.
Three of the missiles struck within the perimeter of the American Embassy, the officials said. Another hit a school located in a nearby residential complex.
An Iraqi military statement said a young girl, a young boy and a woman were injured in the attack. The statement also said the rockets had been launched from the Dora neighbourhood of Baghdad.
Witnesses said they heard the embassy’s C-RAM defense system that detects and destroys incoming rockets, artillery and mortar shells— during the attack.
The latest attack comes as Iraq is once again caught in a political web. It came as Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Thursday, suspended the newly-appointed speaker of parliament Mohammed al-Halbussi, after two fellow deputies lodged a complaint claiming his re-election was unconstitutional.
The US embassy condemned the attack in a statement on Facebook, attributing it to “terrorist groups attempting to undermine Iraq’s security, sovereignty, and international relations”. No group has claimed the attack yet.
In recent months, dozens of rocket assaults or drone bomb attacks have targeted American troops and interests in Iraq, following the second anniversary of the US strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Last Thursday (January 5, 2022), a series of attacks targeted American troops in Iraq and Syria. Rockets struck an Iraqi military base hosting US troops in western Anbar province and the capital.
In November, the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi escaped in an unknown drone bomb attack which targeted his official residence in the Green Zone.
The Green Zone was targeted by two rockets on December 19, 2021, but one was shot down by C-RAM defence batteries and the other fell in a square near the US embassy, damaging two vehicles.
The US-led coalition formally ended its combat mission supporting Iraqi forces in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State group last month. Some 2,500 troops will remain as the coalition shifts to an advisory mission to continue supporting Iraqi forces.
