US troops targeted at base in western Iraq, second attack since February 4

Baghdad, Iraq:

American forces were fired upon at a base in western Iraq, a US defense official said on Tuesday, the second such attack on the country’s troops after a lull of more than two months.

It followed another attack over the weekend in which rockets were fired from northern Iraq at a base in Syria housing forces of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group.

US troops in the Middle East have been attacked numerous times since mid-October, but the cycle of rocket and drone attacks and periodic retaliatory strikes ceased after heavy US airstrikes on Iranian-linked targets in early February.

“Yesterday there was an attack against Al-Asad Air Base” that did not cause any injuries or damage, said the defense official on condition of anonymity, without specifying the nature of the attack.

“This was the second attack against US forces since February 4,” the official said.

A wave of more than 165 attacks against US troops in Iraq and Syria began in October, shortly after the start of the latest round of conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas, causing injuries but no deaths among US forces.

But a drone strike in Jordan killed three US soldiers in late January, after which Washington carried out strikes against dozens of Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria. The airstrikes were followed by a lull in attacks that lasted until the end of this month.

Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iranian-backed groups angered by U.S. support for Israel, but there have been no claims for any of the attacks this month.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)