US Bases in Iraq and Syria Come Under Rocket and Drone Attack

 

The attacks were the first since February

by Dave DeCamp April 22, 2024 at 12:46 pm ET 

CategoriesNewsTagsIraq, Syria

US troops in Iraq and Syria came under two separate rocket and drone attacks in less than 24 hours, Reuters reported Monday, citing US and Iraqi officials.

The officials said the attacks were the first since a nearly three-month pause started in February. The Iraqi government and Iran had pressured Iraqi Shia militias to stop targeting US bases after three US Army Reserve soldiers were killed at Tower 22 in Jordan.

A drone attack targeted the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq, and five rockets were fired at a base in Rumalyn, a remote area of northeast Syria. No casualties were reported in either attack.

A Pentagon official later told Stars and Stripes that a fighter jet from the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria launched an airstrike against a rocket launcher but did not specify where.

The attacks came after an explosion hit a base south of Baghdad that killed one member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of Iraqi militias that’s part of Iraq’s security forces. The cause of the blast is unknown and is being investigated.

Reuters initially reported that after the rocket attacks, a Telegram channel affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shia militias, announced that attacks on US forces resumed because there was no progress toward a US withdrawal. However, Kataib Hezbollah denied issuing the statement, calling it “fabricated news.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani visited Washington last week but left with no clear timeline for a US withdrawal, and both the US and Iraq left open to the possibility of a continued US presence in Iraq even if the international anti-ISIS coalition ends its mission.

Earlier this year, al-Sudani was calling for an end to the US presence as the US was bombing PMF fighters in response to attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria. Starting in October 2023, US bases were targeted hundreds of times until the end of January due to US support for the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/22/us-bases-in-iraq-and-syria-come-under-rocket-and-drone-attack/