BAGHDAD: A rocket hit a military base housing US troops in Iraq’s oil-rich province of Kirkuk, a security source said. The attack took place on Thursday evening when the Katyusha rocket hit the K1 military base without causing casualties, the source told Xinhua news agency.
Iraqi police forces searched the area where the rocket launched from, and found a 12-rocket Katyusha launcher with only one was fired on the base, the source said. The attack came 40 days after the death of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces, who were killed on January 3 in an American drone strike near the Baghdad airport.
In retaliation for Soleimani’s killing, Iran on January 8 launched over 13 ballistic missiles on the two military bases housing US troops in Anbar and near the city of Erbil. Initially, the US said that there was no casualties or injuries, but the Pentagon confirmed on Monday that 109 American troops were diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury as a result of the attacks.
The K1 military base was the target for a rocket barrage late in December 2019, which led to the killing of a US contractor and the wound of others.
Military bases housing US troops across Iraq and the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad have been frequently targeted by insurgents’ mortar and rocket attacks.
Over 5,000 US troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the local forces in the battles against Islamic State militants. But On January 5, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the war-torn country. IANS
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