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Middle East
A truck burns in al-Baghdadi, Anbar at the scene where 14 rockets were fired at Ain al-Asad airbase on July 7, 2021. Photo: handout/Iraq’s Security Media Cell
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two bases housing United States forces in Iraq and Syria came under attack on Wednesday. An oilfield in eastern Syria was attacked by drones and an Iraqi airbase was hit with rockets, officials said.
“At 10:15 a.m local time, our anti-Daesh [ISIS] forward forces & Coalition forces foiled hostile drone attacks against al-Omar field. Initial reports confirm the thwarting of the attacks & no damages were recorded,” tweeted Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Anbar's Ain al-Asad airbase was also hit with rockets, an Iraqi official told Rudaw. The US-led coalition also confirmed the attack.
Fourteen rockets hit the base and its perimeter, according to coalition spokesperson Col. Wayne Marotto.
Initial report: At approx. 12:30 PM local time, Ain Al-Assad Air Base was attacked by 14 rockets. The rockets landed on the base & perimeter. Force protection defensive measures were activated. At this time initial reports indicate 3 minor injuries. Damage is being assessed.
— OIR Spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto (@OIRSpox) July 7, 2021
In a second tweet, Marotto said that "Two personnel sustained minor injuries."
Some of the rockets fired at Ain al-Asad airbase misfired, damaging a residential area in Anbar province and sparking allegations from militias that the US had attacked civilians.
"A truck with a container inside in the al-Baghdadi area in Anbar Governorate stopped near a mosque at 12:30 pm. Deceptively the truck was carrying bags of flour, but it was carrying a base for launching rockets,” the Iraqi military’s Security Media Cell stated.
Fourteen rockets were fired at Ain al-Asad airbase and the remaining rockets exploded on the truck, damaging homes and a mosque, the media cell added.
An eyewitness told Rudaw English that he saw rockets fired from a truck parked next to the al-Bar al-Rahim Mosque in the al-Massa’ah neighborhood of al-Baghdadi.
"We did not expect the bombing to take place from inside residential neighborhoods, among the homes of defenseless civilians. Our homes were damaged and some of my neighbor’s sheep died as a result of the attack," the eyewitness said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The truck was loaded with bags of flour concealing the rocket launchers and caught on fire when the rockets blasted off. “We lived in terror for half an hour,” he added.
The head of the Tribal Mobilization Forces in Anbar, Qatar al-Obaidi, accused the US-led coalition of causing the fire and damage by retaliating to the rocket attack. Sabreen news, affiliated with Iranian-backed factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also accused the US of attacking civilians.
Frequent attacks on bases housing US troops in Iraq are blamed on Iraqi militias who want to force American forces to withdraw from the country. Facilities in the Kurdistan Region are also increasingly coming under attack, by both rockets and drones. And after the US conducted airstrikes against militias on the Iraq-Syria border in late June, sites in Syria have also come under attack several times.
This is the third reported attack on al-Omar oilfield in eastern Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, where US and SDF troops are based, in the past ten days. The SDF said on Sunday that two rockets hit the field, though this was later denied by the coalition. The oilfield was also attacked with artillery late June, hours after the US killed four militiamen in airstrikes in Syria.
The Pentagon said the airstrikes were a defensive move, targeting facilities used by Iran-backed militias who carry out drone attacks against US personnel in Iraq, and came two days after a drone attack in Erbil.
The coalition's Marotto said that their troops are stationed alongside Iraqi and Kurdish forces and so each attack on foreign soldiers endangers the lives of Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga, and "undermines the authority of Iraqi institutions, the rule of law, and Iraqi national sovereignty."
A group called Thaer al-Muhandis (Revenge of Muhandis Brigade) claimed responsibility for the attack on Ain al-Assad, saying their forces fired 30 Grad missiles. "We will force the Americans to leave Iraq," the faction said in a statement published on Telegram.
The Iraqi militias stepped up their attacks against the American interests after the US assassinated militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020.
Updated at 3:55 pm
Additional reporting by Sura Ali
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