Seven rockets fired at US base housing troops in Iraq just weeks after contractor was killed at airbase
AT least seven missiles have tonight been fired at a key Iraqi military base housing US troops, say reports.
Security officials say two rockets fell outside the perimeter of the remote Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, while the others crashed into a neighbouring village.
All seven were fired from the nearby province of Diyala, which is east of the rural base.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the surprise onslaught and there were no immediate reports of any casualties.
However, armed groups – that some Iraqi officials say are backed by Iran – have claimed similar attacks in the region in the past.
Images posted on Twitter by the news outlet Al-Rafidain were said to show the missiles shortly after being launched.
The Balad base is an Iraqi Air Force base located in the ‘Sunni Triangle’ 40 miles north of the Iraqi capital.
Built in the early 1980s it was originally named the Al-Bakr Air Base.
In 2003, the base was captured by the US at the start of the Iraq War and renamed both Balad Air Base by the US Air Force and Anaconda Logistical Support Area by the US Army.
It was handed back to the Iraqi Air Force in November 2011 during the US withdrawal from the battle-scarred country, after which it returned to being called the Balad Air Base.
During the Iraq War, it was the second largest US base in Iraq and today is home to the Iraqi Air Force’s Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon.
Earlier this month, a rocket attack on another Iraqi airbase hosting US and coalition forces killed one civilian contractor and injured nine others.
A volley of approximately 14 rockets was fired at the base in the region’s main city of Erbil late on March 1, just days after President Biden ordered his first airstrike in Syria.
That attack on American forces in the country sparked fears of escalation in the first serious test of Joe Biden’s policy towards Iran.
The rockets were fired at Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base that also hosts Iraqi troops.
Three “107mm rockets” landed inside the base while others fell on residential areas nearby, killing one person identified by a US coalition spokesperson as a foreign national, but not a US citizen, and injuring one US service member.
At least five Iraqi civilians were also injured, with one left in a critical condition.
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The March 1 rocket attack came just days after the Biden administration’s first airstrike on an Iran-backed Shia militia compound in neighbouring Syria.
The US dropped seven 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions ( JDAMs) reportedly killing 22 at a crossing used by Iranian-backed militia groups to move weapons across the border.
The President said the airstrike he ordered was a warning to Iran to “be careful” and not support militia groups that threaten Americans.