Five rockets target the US Embassy and an airbase used by American troops in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, (ST)- Five rockets targeted on Saturday the Green Zone in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where the US embassy is located, as well as the Balad Airbase where US troops are stationed in the north of Baghdad.

Citing a police source, Al-Sumaria news website said that a mortar shell also fell  in al-Jaderya area injuring three people.

“Two Katyusha rockets directed towards the American embassy fell close to the embassy,” a source in the special squad in charge of protecting the Green Zone told SANA correspondent in Baghdad.

The source added that the two rockets caused no human casualties but only material damage to some cars.

 On his part, Major-General Sahi al-Ameri, commander of the Balad Airbase in Salah al-Din province in central Iraq, revealed that three mortar shells fell in the base, part of which is used by the American forces as a camp.

Al-Ameri said that “the three shells, one of which landed on the runway, caused material damage and injured three Iraqis.”

The attacks came just a day after a US airstrike assassinated Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy chief of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), in the Iraqi capital.

Four other Iranians and four more Iraqis in their company were also martyred.

Hamda Mustafa