Four rockets hit near base north of Baghdad housing US troops, Iraqi official says

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In an escalation of events following a strike on Sunday against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, four Katyusha rockets reportedly hit near a base that houses American troops north of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

The strikes hit the al-Taji military base, located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, an unnamed Iraqi Interior Ministry official was quoted as saying by AFP.

“Four Katyusha rockets exploded in the evening around the huge Taji Iraqi military base…which houses American soldiers, without causing casualties,” the official stated.

The incident occurred hours after the United States launched five strikes against facilities belonging to the Iraqi militia, Kata’ib Hizbollah, as it charged that the Iranian-backed militia was behind Friday’s lethal attack on K-1, an Iraqi military base outside Kirkuk.

Read More: US strikes Kata’ib Hizbollah in Iraq and Syria

Iraqi sources reported that four militia members were killed in the attack, with another 30 wounded.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), claimed 15 of its fighters were killed and 35 others injured.

Kata’ib Hizbollah is headed by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who is also the deputy head of the Hashd al-Shaabi. The PMF were first formed in 2014 to defend Iraq against the so-called Islamic State.

Muhandis is a long-time ally of Tehran. Born in Basra in 1954, he was working with Iran already in the 1980s. He was involved in the 1983 bombings of the US and French embassies in Kuwait, for which he was convicted in absentia.

During the US-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein (formally known as Operation Iraqi Freedom-OIF), Kata’ib Hizbollah was prominently involved in attacking US and other Coalition forces, and the US designated it a terrorist organization then.