US forces shoot down armed drone over Iraq embassy
US forces shot down an armed drone above their embassy in Baghdad on Monday night.
BAGHDAD (AFP) - US forces shot down an armed drone above their embassy in Baghdad on Monday night, Iraqi security officials said, hours after a rocket attack on a base housing US soldiers in the west of the country.
American defence systems fired rockets into the air in Baghdad, according to AFP reporters, with Iraqi security sources saying the salvos took out a drone that was laden with explosives.
Since the start of the year, 47 attacks have targeted US interests in the country, where 2,500 American troops are deployed as part of an international coalition to fight the jihadist Islamic State group.
Six of them involved these kinds of drones, a tactic that poses a headache for the coalition as the aircraft can evade air defences.
In April, a drone packed with explosives hit the coalition s Iraq headquarters in the military part of the airport in Arbil, the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital.
The next month, a drone packed with explosives hit the Ain Al-Asad airbase housing US troops.
On June 9, three explosives-laden drones targeted Baghdad airport, where US soldiers are also deployed. One was intercepted by the Iraqi army.
In a sign that the United States is concerned about new drone attacks, it recently offered up to $3 million for information on attacks targeting its interests in Iraq.
Separately on Monday, three rockets targeted an Iraqi air base in the western desert that also housed US troops, the international anti-jihadist coalition said.
The attack targeted the base at Ain al-Assad without causing any casualties.
- Rockets target Iraq base hosting US troops -
Three rockets targeted an Iraqi air base hosting American troops on Monday without causing casualties, a spokesman for the US-led coalition said.
Colonel Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the international coalition in Iraq, said on Twitter that the Ain al-Assad base "was attacked by three rockets" in the early afternoon.
"The rockets landed on the base perimeter. There are no injuries and damage is being assessed," he said.
The assault on the Ain al-Assad facility in the western province of Anbar is the latest in a series of attacks on American interests in Iraq which Washington blames on Iran-linked militias.
US forces, whose 2,500 troops are deployed in Iraq as part of an international coalition to fight the jihadist Islamic State group, have been targeted more than 40 times this year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday s attack, which came a week after deadly US air strikes on pro-Iran fighters in both Iraq and Syria.
The Pentagon said the raids were retaliation for attacks on US interests, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared they sent a "strong message" not to keep attacking American forces.
The Hashed-al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilitary alliance that includes several Iranian proxies and has become the main power broker in Baghdad, said the raids killed four of its fighters in the Qaim region near the border with Syria.
The June 27-28 overnight strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one in Iraq, the Pentagon said.
Hours later, pro-Iran militias fired several shells at an American base in eastern Syria.
Iran-aligned groups operate in Iraq, which counts both Tehran and Washington as allies, and in war-torn Syria, where Iran is a key backer of the Damascus regime.
