BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Local Iraqi sources reported that a massive fire broke out in the Americans’ Victoria base located near the Baghdad airport.
Media sources reported on early Tuesday that a massive fire broke out at the base near Baghdad International Airport which is considered one of the centers of deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq.
No further details about the fire and its casualties have been released so far.
Earlier on July 2, Iraqi sources reported that several explosions occurred in this military base.
The development comes as day after a number of rockets reportedly targeted a military base in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, which houses Turkish forces involved in ongoing military operations against purported positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with Iraqi anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units – better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi – reported that a number of 122 mm rockets struck Zilkan base in northern Iraq’s Bashiqa region at around 12 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) on Monday.
An Iraqi resistance group calling itself Taskeel Ahrar al-Iraq (Assembly of Free Iraqi Men) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted the base.
The Erbil-based Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD) said in a statement on its Facebook page that the military base in Zilkan was targeted with two rockets.
“One rocket landed inside the base while the other landed in the vicinity of Gudad village without causing casualties or material damage,” Kurdish-language Rudaw television news network cited the CTD as saying.
The rockets were believed to have been fired from near Gugjali neighborhood in Mosul city, the report added.
On July 20, Turkey carried out a strike against the Iraqi hill village of Parakh in the Zakho district in Dohuk province, killing at least nine tourists, including children and women, and wounding more than 20 others.
Authorities in Iraq insist that the attack was carried out by Turkish forces and that they are responsible for the deaths and injuries of Iraqi civilians, while Ankara says the country’s forces did not attack civilians.