US, Iraqi Soldiers Said Wounded in Latest Rocket Attacks

The Pentagon says three American soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, in a Saturday rocket attack on Iraq’s Taji military base. Baghdad adds that an unspecified number of Iraqi troops were seriously wounded in the 33-rocket barrage, which came just before noon. Military authorities in Iraq say that investigators later found seven abandoned launching platforms and 24 unguided Katyusha-type rockets ready to be fired. Saturday’s attack follows US airstrikes that overnight between Thursday and Friday against targets in Iraq used primarily by Kataib Hizbullah, one of several Shi’ite militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Those strikes were in retaliation for a rocket attack similar to Saturday’s, which last Wednesday killed a US soldier and a British soldier, as well as an American civilian contractor. Following the US retaliatory strikes, Baghdad complained that government security personnel had been among those killed.