(Washington) Pro-Iran fighters fired ballistic missiles on Saturday at a base housing American troops in Iraq, the American military Command in the Middle East (Centcom) announced, reporting an injured Iraqi soldier and possible injuries American side.
“Around 6:30 p.m. (Baghdad time) on January 20, ballistic missiles and rockets were fired by Iranian-backed fighters at al-Assad airbase in western Iraq », Announced Centcom on social networks.
The US command added that “an Iraqi service member was injured” and that “evaluations are underway on a number of personnel for traumatic brain injuries.”
According to the same source, most of the missiles were intercepted by air defense systems.
Previously, an Iraqi police official and an American soldier indicated that around ten missiles were fired Saturday in western Iraq against the Ain al-Assad military base housing American soldiers and others. troops of the international anti-jihadist coalition.
The attacks were claimed in a press release by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, a nebula of fighters from pro-Iran armed groups, who have already carried out dozens of strikes against the anti-jihadist coalition since mid-October.
Most were claimed by “the Islamic Resistance in Iraq” and Washington has several times launched its own reprisals. The United States maintains 2,500 troops in Iraq and around 900 in Syria.
Saturday’s shootings come in an explosive regional context, fueled by the repercussions of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel, an ally of the United States, and the Palestinian movement Hamas, supported by Iran.
On Saturday, five members of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, were killed in a strike in Damascus blamed on Israel by Tehran, which threatened reprisals.
Already on Monday evening, Iran had launched ballistic missile attacks against autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq, claiming to have targeted a site used by “spies of the Zionist regime (Mossad)”.
Between October 17 and January 17, at least 140 drone, rocket and short-range ballistic missile attacks targeted the anti-jihadist coalition mobilized against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria, according to a US Defense official. .