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US-POLITICS-IRAQ-ROCKET
3 rockets land near U.S. embassy in Iraq’s Baghdad
BAGHDAD, July 19, 2020 (BSS/XINHUA) – Three Katyusha rockets landed Sunday near
the U.S. embassy at the heavily fortified Green Zone in central the Iraqi
capital Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
The attack took place in the afternoon when the three rockets landed near the
U.S. embassy in the Green Zone, which houses some of the main Iraqi government
offices and some foreign embassies, the source told Xinhua on condition of
anonymity.
There were no immediate reports on casualties, the source said.
The Green Zone has been frequently targeted by insurgents’ mortar and rocket
attacks. The roughly 10-square-km zone is located on the west bank of the Tigris
River, which bisects the Iraqi capital.
The U.S. embassy and other Iraqi military bases, where U.S. troops stationed,
have been frequently targeted by insurgent mortar and rocket attacks.
The attack came hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
arrived in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders.
The Iraqi-U.S. relations have witnessed a tension since Jan. 3 when a U.S. drone
struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former
commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.
The U.S. airstrike prompted the Iraqi parliament on Jan. 5 to pass a resolution
requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.
More than 5,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the Iraqi
forces in the battles against the Islamic State militants, mainly providing
training and advising to the Iraqi forces.
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