Iraq finds rocket launch pad it says targeted US embassy in Baghdad

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Baghdad Operations Command (BOC), which coordinates Iraq's police and military forces, on Tuesday announced that security force members had found the missile launching pad from which the rockets targeting the US embassy compound in the fortified Green Zone earlier in the day were fired.

US embassy sirens went off that morning as three missiles landed near the compound in the Iraqi capital, read a statement. 

Read More: Rockets land near US embassy in Baghdad

“The missile launching pad was found in the Za’faraniyah neighborhood along with another launching pad with the rockets still not fired,” said the BOC, adding that an “Investigation is still ongoing to find the culprits who conducted this terrorist act.”

Hours earlier, outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi condemned the attack and called for an investigation into the incident.

Read More: Iraq’s outgoing PM condemns rocket attack near US embassy, calls for investigation

“The targeting of the US embassy is a crime against diplomatic missions on Iraqi grounds,” state-run Iraqi News Agency quoted Abdul Mahdi as saying.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack or other similar attacks – which have taken place several times in recent years and with increasing regularity – the United States often accuses Iraqi militia forces linked to Iran of carrying them out.

The attack comes amid a period of heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, after a series of tit-for-tat attacks by the US and Iran and its proxies in Iraq.

Airbases in Iraq that house American and coalition forces have been the target of rocket attacks in recent months.  

On Jan. 9, two rockets landed in Iraq’s fortified Green Zone early but caused no casualties. The Iraqi Army said the Katyusha rockets landed near the US embassy in Baghdad. 

Editing by John J. Catherine