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News ID: 75341
Publish Date : 21 January 2020 - 22:30

Three Rockets Hit Baghdad’s Green Zone Close to U.S. Embassy

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Three rockets have fallen in the Green Zone near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, an Iraqi security source has said.
"Three missiles landed in the area close to the U.S. embassy in the ‘green zone’ in Baghdad, air raid sirens are heard from the embassy”, the source said.
Reuters reported earlier of blast heard in the city, but added that the cause was unknown.
Supposed videos from the scene with sirens sounding have been shared on social media.
The Green Zone is in central Baghdad, where government buildings and diplomatic facilities are located. It is not the first time the area has come under attack recently. Earlier on 8 January, two rockets fell in the centre of Baghdad.
On 6 January, heavy shelling targeted central Baghdad, which the Iraqi military identified as Soviet-made Katyusha-type projectiles.
The Monday attacks came less than two weeks after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Asad, a large airbase in Iraq’s Anbar hosting about 1,500 U.S. troops, and another outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.
The missile operation was in response to Washington’s January 3 assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who led the IRGC’s Quds Force.
The assassination also resulted in the martyrdom of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
Iraqi resistance groups have vowed to avenge the assassination of Abu Mahdi, as Iran took revenge for General Soleimani.