Rocket Aimed at Baghdad’s Green Zone Wounds Child

A child was injured when a rocket that was apparently launched toward the Baghdad’s so-called Green Zone, site of the US and other embassies as well as government offices, struck a private home overnight between Saturday and Sunday. The US Embassy compound has been targeted on numerous occasions by rockets and mortar fire attributed to the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraqi Shi’ite militias that analysts believe take their orders from Tehran. Military sources in the Iraqi capital say the rocket was launched from another neighborhood of Baghdad to the northwest. Last week, Iraqi security units raided the headquarters of one of these militias, detaining 14 people suspected of involvement of similar attacks on the Green Zone. One of those detainees remains in custody. The US Embassy recently installed a defensive weapon system that can be used to target incoming rockets and even mortar rounds, and Iraqi officials were quoted saying that embassy personnel began testing it shortly before the latest rocket attack.