The Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD), also known as Kurdistan CT, announced that “At 9:07 pm a suicide drone fired by ‘outlaw militia groups’ at the global coalition against ISIS military base in Erbil International Airport, was shot down and destroyed”.
No casualties were reported.
Iran-backed militias have struck bases of the coalition in Iraq and Syria with rockets and drones over 100 times since mid-October, in retaliation to Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group has claimed most of similar attacks against US interests in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region, and Syria since mid-October.
The attack comes days after the group targeted the Ain al-Asad base which houses US troops in Iraq’s western Anbar province, injuring one Iraqi service member, to which the US responded with retaliatory airstrikes on facilities of pro-Iran militias, mainly Kataib Hezbollah, near Anbar province’s Qaim district and Babil’s Jurf al-Nasr (formerly Jurf al-Sakhar).
Washington’s strikes drew strong condemnation from the Iraqi government, with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s military spokesperson describing them as “unacceptable” and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, calling on the international community to prevent aggressions against the country’s stability.
“The strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda during a press briefing on Wednesday.
American troops and bases in Iraq and Syria have come under about 140 rocket and drone attacks since mid-October by Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups condemning Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip, according to the latest tally from the Pentagon.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively.