One civilian was wounded late Monday in Iraq’s capital Baghdad after shrapnel from an intercepted drone attack targeting the US embassy fell into their neighbourhood, a police source said.<\/p>\n
The attack follows a rocket strike the previous evening that targeted an Iraqi military base inside the Baghdad airport complex, which also houses a support centre for the US embassy.<\/p>\n
Iraq has been drawn into the broader Middle East war that started on February 28 despite seeking to avoid it at all costs. Pro-Iran armed groups have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region, while strikes have also targeted the groups.<\/p>\n
“A civilian was injured in the al-Shaljiya area of Baghdad when shrapnel from an air defence system intercepting a drone fell,” the police source said.<\/p>\n
The neighbourhood is near Baghdad’s Green Zone, which hosts embassies and government offices.<\/p>\n
The night before, a rocket strike on an air base from the outskirts of the capital destroyed an Iraqi Antonov-132 aircraft but caused no casualties, the ministry of defence said.<\/p>\n
The base is near a US diplomatic and logistics hub inside the Baghdad airport complex, which has been repeatedly targeted since the start of the war.<\/p>\n
A military official told AFP that “rockets fell inside the diplomatic support centre early Monday morning, causing a fire”.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month a security official told AFP that the US diplomatic hub had evacuated much of its personnel.<\/p>\n
Since the outbreak of war, pro-Iran factions under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq — which have repeatedly claimed attacks against US interests — have also been targeted by strikes they blame on the US or Israel.<\/p>\n
Late Monday, the coalition condemned the use of rockets in the city.<\/p>\n
The incidents come after Washington and Baghdad said last week they would “intensify cooperation” to prevent attacks and ensure Iraqi territory was not used to launch assaults against US facilities.<\/p>\n
Two drones targeted the US embassy over the weekend, though neither hit their target.<\/p>\n
The influential pro-Iran armed group Kataeb Hezbollah said on March 19 it would pause attacks on the diplomatic outpost for five days, twice extending the pause.<\/p>\n
cbg\/rbu\/smw<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One civilian was wounded late Monday in Iraq’s capital Baghdad after shrapnel from an intercepted drone attack targeting the US embassy fell into their neighbourhood, a police source said. The attack follows a rocket strike the previous evening that targeted an Iraqi military base inside the Baghdad airport complex, which also houses a support centre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3002],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-coverage-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}