An attack on “Trapped drones” was carried out on the evening of Tuesday July 6 against Erbil International Airport, near the American Consulate in this city in northern Iraq, the Iraqi Kurdistan Counterterrorism Unit reported in a press release. An attack confirmed by coalition spokesman Colonel Wayne Marotto.
The attack, which took place around 10:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. in Paris), did not cause any injuries or material damage, and firefighters have brought under control an outbreak of fire, the statement said.
Erbil airport, where there is a military base of the international coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), was already targeted in April by an attack carried out by a drone stuffed with explosives.
In recent months, US interests in Iraq have been the target of repeated and growing attacks. On Monday, a drone bomb targeting the US embassy in Baghdad was shot down hours after a rocket attack on a base housing US troops in western Iraq. The United States systematically accuses pro-Iran factions of being responsible for these operations.
Since the start of the year, some 48 attacks have targeted US interests in the country, where 2,500 US troops are deployed as part of the international anti-terrorism coalition.
Concerns around drone attacks
The new use of drones is a headache for the coalition because these flying machines can escape the C-RAM defense batteries, installed by the American army to defend its troops.
The new attacks come a week after US strikes against positions of Hachd al-Chaabi, a powerful pro-Iranian paramilitary force in Syria and Iraq, which killed a dozen fighters. Hachd al-Chaabi regularly welcomes the launching of rockets and trapped drones, but never claims responsibility.
As a sign that the United States is worried about new drone attacks, it recently announced that it was offering up to $ 3 million (2.5 million euros) for information on attacks targeting its interests in Iraq.