BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- At least 14 rockets hit an Iraqi airbase hosting U.S. and other foreign forces on Wednesday, wounding two people, the U.S. military said.
Iraqi anti-terror groups vowed to retaliate after last month’s U.S. strikes on the Iraqi-Syrian border martyred four of their members.
Two soldiers were wounded in the rocket attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, U.S. Army Colonel Wayne Marotto said. He initially put the number of injuries at three. The rockets landed on the base and its perimeter, he tweeted.
The Thar al-Muhandis Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. It said it struck the base with 30 Grad rockets, adding that the projectiles hit their targets accurately.
Sources said the strike had most likely been meant to destroy very important and expensive equipment and installations belonging to U.S. troops.
The Iraqi resistance group has identified its goal as seeking revenge for the U.S. drone strike that martyred senior Iraqi anti-terror commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad early last year. The strike also martyred ranking Iranian counter-terrorism commander, General Qassem Soleimani and many others.
The Iraqi parliament passed a law soon afterward, ruling all forms of U.S.-led presence in the country as illegal.
Both the commanders played a key role in defeating the takfiri terrorist group of Daesh, which the U.S. has been using as an alleged excuse to prolong its presence in Iraq and Syria, which has also been invaded by the coalition’s forces.
U.S. forces opened “aimless” artillery fire in response to the attack on Ain al-Assad, causing damage to a number of civilian residences and a mosque in the city of Hit in al-Anbar, reports said.
Iraq’s Alahad TV said the U.S.
military had responded with multiple attacks that caused fire to a number of residences located in Hit’s al-Baghdadi area.
The U.S. military, however, alleged that the response had targeted the locations that had been struck with rockets.
In Syria, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), mortar rounds were fired into the Dayr al-Zawr-based military compound for the third time in recent days.
A drone attack was launched on the Al Omar oil field in eastern Syria, an area bordering Iraq where U.S. forces came under rocket fire on June 28.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military about the Syria attack.
Iraqi army officials said the pace of recent attacks against U.S. bases with rockets and explosive-laden drones was unprecedented.
Iraqi military sources said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a truck was used in Wednesday’s attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase and was found on nearby farmland set on fire.
On Tuesday, a drone attacked Erbil airport in northern Iraq, targeting a U.S. base on the airport grounds, Kurdish security sources said. Three rockets also landed on Ain al-Asad on Monday.