Since Wednesday, at least five drone and rocket attacks have targeted three Iraqi bases where American troops and the international anti-jihadist coalition are deployed. One of them caused “light injuries”, according to the American army.
“The attacks targeting Iraqi bases where advisers to the international coalition in Iraq are hosted are unacceptable,” said Yahya Rassoul, spokesperson for the Iraqi Prime Minister for military affairs, in a statement.
“Islamic resistance in Iraq”
The Prime Minister, Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, “ordered the security services” to “find the elements who carried out these attacks”, he added. Most of the attacks were claimed by a group called “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” on Telegram channels affiliated with Shiite factions loyal to Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, a country which was the target of a deadly attack by an unprecedented scale carried out on October 7 by the Islamist movement Hamas.
Without directly referring to the attacks on Iraqi bases, the United States, Israel’s ally, on Friday ordered the evacuation of non-essential staff from its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Iraqi government is supported by pro-Iranian parties and has repeatedly condemned Israeli strikes against the Gaza Strip carried out in response to the October 7 attack. But Baghdad must also preserve its relations with the United States, whose 2,500 soldiers are deployed in Iraq to, in particular, advise and train the Iraqi army.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians shot, burned alive or mutilated on the day of the attack, according to authorities. In the Gaza Strip, more than 4,600 Palestinians, the majority civilians including nearly 1,900 children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, were killed in Israeli retaliatory bombings.