BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi escaped unharmed in an assassination attempt by armed drone in Baghdad on Sunday, officials said, in an incident that raised questions about its nature.
Six members of Kadhimi’s personal protection force stationed outside his residence in the Green Zone were wounded, security sources said.
Three drones were used in the attack, including two that were intercepted and downed by security forces while a third drone hit the residence, state news agency INA quoted a spokesman for the interior ministry as saying.
A spokesman for the armed forces commander in chief said the security situation was stable inside the fortified Green Zone, which houses the residence, government buildings and foreign embassies, after the drone attack.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack came after government forces in Baghdad attacked protesters agitating peacefully against the results of a general election on Oct. 10, triggering an outcry by many Iraqis.
“The fictitious explosion and gunfire were meant to conceal yesterday’s crimes, and destined to engage the public attention,” Mahmoud al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Sadiqoun bloc, the political wing of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq resistance group, tweeted.
Kadhimi appeared in a video footage published by his office later Sunday, chairing a meeting with top security commanders to discuss the drone attack.
“The cowardly terrorist attack that targeted the home of the prime minister last night with the aim of assassinating him, is a serious targeting of the Iraqi state by criminal armed groups,” the premier’s office said in a statement issued following the meeting.
President Barham Salih condemned the attack as a heinous crime against Iraq. “We cannot accept that Iraq will be dragged into chaos and a coup against its constitutional system,” he said in a tweet.
Influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr slammed the drone attack a flagrant onslaught on Iraq and its entire nation.
“The terrorist act against the country’s highest-ranking official is a clear and blatant targeting of Iraq, its nation, security, and stability. It was meant to plunge Iraq into chaos, so that Iraqis would live under the threat of riots, violence, terrorism, and interventions of outsiders,” Sadr said via Twitter.
Remains of a small explosive-laden drone used in the attack were retrieved by security forces to be investigated, a security official with knowledge of the attack was quoted as saying.
“It’s premature now to say who carried out the attack,” the security official on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to comment on security details.
“We’re checking our intelligence reports and waiting for initial investigation results to point the finger at perpetrators.”
The Iraqi military said in a statement the attack targeted Kadhimi’s residence and that he was in “good health”. Kadhimi’s official Twitter account said the prime minister was safe, and called for calm.
Western diplomats based nearby in the Green Zone said they heard explosions and gunfire in the area.
The spokesman for the Iraqi Joint Operations Command raised questions about the U.S. military’s C-RAM systems used to detect and destroy incoming rockets and flying objects being deactivated at the time of the attack.
“We are currently discussing the matter with the American side and officials from the U.S. embassy. This is an issue that experts should throw light on and explain,” Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji said.
“All this happened while U.S. C-RAM defense systems were inactivated,” Rubaie said.
“The U.S. Embassy activates its C-Ram missile defense system and sounds sirens any time there is an attack in the Green Zone of

Baghdad. This time the siren was heard, and it was sounded only after the explosion,” Muhammad al-Hamad, a producer and presenter for Iraq’s Afaq TV, wrote in a series of posts published on his Twitter page.
The first media outlet to cover the incident was Saudi-owned Al-Hadath television which tried tried to implicate Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq group in the incident.
Hamad said Al-Hadath and its sister channel Al-Arabiya have repeatedly sought to drag Iraq into chaos and sedition, describing the circumstances surrounding the failed assassination attempt on Kadhimi as a low-budget movie.
Khazali said he had already warned about attacking the Green Zone and accusing the resistance.
“A few days ago, we warned about the intention of some parties related to the intelligence authorities to attack the Green Zone,” he said.
Khazali called for an investigation by a technical and trusted committee to seriously identify and try the perpetrators of the assassination attempt.
“If this is a real attack, we explicitly condemn it,” he said, adding it appears to be “an attempt to disrupt the game and the situation, one day after the crime of killing demonstrators and torching their tents was perpetrated”.

Iran Calls for Vigilance

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian called his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, telling him the assassination attempt was aimed at disturbing peace in the Arab country by its ill-wishers.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh called for vigilance by all Iraqis against the “conspiracies that have targeted Iraq’s security and progress”, Tasnim news agency reported.
“Such incidents are in the interests of the parties that have violated Iraq’s stability, security, independence and territorial integrity over the past 18 years and sought to achieve their sinister goals in the region by creating terrorist groups and stirring sedition,” it quoted Khatibzadeh as saying.
The spokesman also expressed satisfaction that the Iraqi premier is safe, saying he hoped that with unity and solidarity, the people, government and political currents of Iraq would contribute to the development and prosperity of their country.
Earlier Sunday, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said the attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Kadhimi was “a new sedition that must be traced back to foreign think tanks, which have brought nothing but insecurity, discord, and instability to the oppressed Iraqi people through the creation and support of terrorist groups and occupation of this country for years”.