Rocket Strikes Near US Embassy in Baghdad’s ‘Green Zone’

One rocket struck close to the US Embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday morning, in the first such incident in weeks. No injuries or damages were reported. The American mission, which is located in the Iraqi capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone, has over the past year repeatedly been targeted by rocket fire widely attributed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite armed groups. Iraq has become the primary battleground for tit-for-tat military exchanges between Washington and Tehran, including, most notably, the January assassination in a US drone strike of Iranian Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani. The Islamic Republic, in turn, responded with a coordinated ballistic missile attack on two bases housing US soldiers, dozens of whom suffered brain-related injuries. Iranian proxies have since October similarly been accused of perpetrating some 25 attacks targeting US personnel, in particular, resulting in the deaths of at least two American soldiers and a military contractor. Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei said over the weekend that the US would “not be staying either in Iraq or Syria and must withdraw or will certainly be expelled.”