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IRAQ-UNREST-US-ROCKETS
Civilian among six dead in US air strikes on Iraq
BAGHDAD, March 13, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US air strikes targeting pro-Iranian
military factions in Iraq killed one civilian and five security personnel
early Friday, the Iraqi military said, warning the raids risked a bloody
escalation for the war-battered country.
The Pentagon said the strikes were in retaliation for rocket fire against
an Iraqi base on Wednesday night that killed one British and two US military
personnel in the deadliest such attack in years.
The strikes battered positions belonging to both the Iraqi army and the
state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network.
Among them were areas controlled by Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed
faction that the US has blamed for several attacks on foreign troops in Iraq.
The Iraqi military said its preliminary death toll from the air strikes
was three Iraqi soldiers, two policemen and one civilian working at an
unfinished airport south of Baghdad.
There were no Hashed members among the dead but the toll could rise as
some bodies were still stuck under the rubble, the statement said.
Hashed fighters were among 11 Iraqi fighters wounded in the bombardment,
some of them critically. One civilian was also wounded.
The military warned the air strikes risked “escalation and deterioration
of the security situation in the country, and exposes everyone to more risks
and threats.”
President Barham Saleh condemned them as a violation of the country’s
sovereignty that could “slide Iraq into anarchy and chaos”.
The foreign ministry said it would summon both the US and British
ambassadors over the strikes.
– ‘Illegal occupation’ –
Top US military and civilian officials had long expressed frustration that
Iraq’s government was not doing enough to prevent rocket attacks targeting US
troops and diplomats.
In its statement, the Pentagon said the strikes, which began around 1:00
am (2200 GMT Thursday), hit five Hashed facilities.
It said they were “defensive, proportional and in direct response to the
threat posed by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups who continue to attack
bases” hosting foreign troops in Iraq.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “The response to the cowardly
attack on coalition forces in Iraq has been swift, decisive and
proportionate.”
A US official told AFP that the warplanes hit logistics nodes and drone
storage units.
Among the targets were the Jurf al-Sakhr area south of Baghdad, a
militarised zone controlled by Kataeb Hezbollah, according to an Iraqi
security source.
The unfinished new airport serving the shrine city of Karbala was also
hit, according to its spokesman Ghazwan Issawi.
“Five missiles hit the administrative building at the airport and 18 cars
were destroyed,” Issawi told AFP, claiming no armed groups have a presence
there.
There was no immediate statement from the Hashed but one of its Iran-
aligned factions, Harakat al-Nujaba, slammed the air raids as evidence of
Washongton’s “illegal occupation” of Iraq.
And Iran warned US President Donald Trump against taking “dangerous
actions” in the region.
Its foreigm ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Washington was reaping
the “consequences of its illegal presence in Iraq and the nation’s reaction
to the assassination and killing of Iraqi commanders and fighters”.
– Close to the edge –
Some 5,200 American troops are based in Iraq as part of the US-led
coalition helping local troops toot out Islamic State group remnants.
But they have come under fire in recent months: nearly two dozen rocket
attacks have targeted US troops and diplomats since late October.
One such attack on a base in northern Iraq in December killed a US
contractor, prompting Washington to respond with air strikes on Kataeb
Hezbollah in western Iraq.
Days later, Washington killed Iran’s powerful foreign operations chief
Qasem Soleimani — whom the US said had orchestrated the rocket attacks —
and the Hashed’s deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike outside
Baghdad airport.
Iran launched ballistic missiles at US troops in Iraq while the Iraqi
parliament voted to expel all foreign soldiers from its soil, a decision that
has yet to implemented.
The spiralling tensions brought the two countries close to war, and the
latest episode this week had worried Iraqi officials that their country would
once again be a battleground for regional tensions.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1905HRS