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News ID: 90946
Publish Date : 06 June 2021 - 21:44

Drones Target Iraq Base Housing U.S. Troops

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – The Iraqi army has said that two drones targeted a base housing United States troops in western province of Anbar, one month after the same base was targeted by an armed drone.
The U.S. military’s C-RAM system was activated to shoot down the drones above the Ain al-Asad airbase, located in Iraq’s western desert, but failed to intercept the aircraft on Sunday.
The Security Media Cell affiliated with the Iraqi prime minister’s office, however, said the drones had been shot down.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, which is the latest in a series of assaults that have targeted U.S. occupation forces over the past few months.
On April 8, Iraq and the U.S. said they had agreed on the eventual withdrawal of U.S. “combat” troops from Iraq, and that the two sides would hold talks to work out the timing.
The mission of U.S. troops is now allegedly focused on “training” Iraqi troops to fight Daesh, but American troops target popular anti-terror fighters from time to time.
Iraqi resistance groups have warned that they will treat the American troops as occupying forces and take up arms against them if they refuse to leave their country.
A day earlier, a United States-run diplomatic facility in the Iraqi capital Baghdad was targeted in a single rocket strike, the U.S.-led forces deployed to the Arab country reported.
The attack targeted the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center (BDSC) late Saturday, tweeted Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the codename for the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq.
“Initial report: At approx 0015 local time [21:15 GMT on Saturday]” the facility “was attacked by one rocket round,” he said.
Washington invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext of waging “the war on terror.” The offensive used the excuse that Iraq was harboring “weapons of mass destruction,” something that was proven wrong later.
The invasion, however, went on to give rise to increasing anti-American sentiment within the Iraqi society as well as unchecked ethnic violence and chaos.
The terrorist group of Daesh rose amid the situation in 2014. Washington used this as another excuse, leading scores of its allies into Iraq.