At least five rockets were fired from the Iraqi town of Zumar to U.S. military bases in northeastern Syria on Sunday, two Iraqi security sources and a U.S. official told Reuters.
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At least five rockets were fired from the Iraqi town of Zumar to U.S. military bases in northeastern Syria on Sunday, two Iraqi security sources and a U.S. official told Reuters.
The attack on U.S. forces was the first since early February, when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq halted attacks on U.S. forces.
A day earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani returned from a visit to the United States and met with President Joe Biden at the White House.
A post on a Telegram group affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah said the armed faction in Iraq had decided to resume attacks after a nearly three-month pause after seeing little progress in talks to end the U.S.-led military alliance.
Sabreen News, another Telegram group close to Hezbollah’s Kataeb, later said the Iran-backed faction had yet to issue an official statement.
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Iraq fired more than five rockets at the coalition base of Rumalin in Syria, but no U.S. personnel were injured.
The official called it a “failed rocket attack,” but it was unclear whether the rocket failed to hit the base or was destroyed before reaching it. It was unclear whether the base was the target itself.
Later, an aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition of Iraqi and Syrian forces attacked the launcher, the official said.
Two Iraqi security sources and a senior military officer said a pickup truck with a rocket launcher on the back was parked in the town of Zumar on the border with Syria.
An army official said the destroyed truck had been seized for further investigation, with initial investigations suggesting it was destroyed in an airstrike.
“We are communicating with coalition forces in Iraq to share information about this attack,” the official added.
The Iraqi Security Media Group, the official body responsible for disseminating security messages, said in a statement that Iraqi forces had launched an “extensive search and inspection operation” targeting the perpetrators near the Syrian border and pledged to bring them to justice.
The attack occurred after a huge explosion at an Iraqi military base early saturday Killed a member of the Iraqi security forces, which includes Iran-backed groups. Force commanders called it an attack, while the military said it was investigating and that there were no warplanes in the sky at the time.
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