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Iraq
Shiite pilgrims wear masks outside the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, Iraq on February 24, 2020. Photo: AP / Ammar Khalil
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – An improvised explosive device (IED) struck an English-language institute in Najaf’s city centre in the early hours of Friday, according to Iraqi state media, with no casualties reported.
The blast at the American Institute for English in the city’s al-Ghadeer neighbourhood “resulted only in material damage,” Iraqi state media quoted Najaf’s police department as saying.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, and investigation to identify the attackers is “ongoing”, according to Najaf police.
Video of the explosion’s aftermath circulating on social media shows substantial damage to the front of the building.
IED attacks have grown increasingly common in Iraq in recent weeks, but have primarily targeted military contractor convoys. However, an IED hit a United Nations convoy in Nineveh in late August, and a British diplomatic convoy was subject to a similar attack in Baghdad earlier this week.
Recent attacks on US and Western targets in Iraq are believed to have been conducted by the Iran-backed Islamic Front for Resistance Inside Iraq (al-Muqawama), a group whose aim is to force US troops to withdraw from the country. Units of the group have claimed responsibility for previous such attacks.
In a statement released last month, the group slated Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s visit to Washington, and the security consensus between the two countries.
“The visit of prime minister [to Washington] did not include the expulsion of the American invader troops from Iraq completely…so we as resistance forces will no longer wait for the strategic dialogue, but instead we will start to target all American interests in Iraq, and create an earthquake under their troops in Iraq, even if they move far away from our cities,” the statement read.
US forces pulled out of Iraq in 2011, but were invited back to Iraq in 2014 by the Iraqi government to help fight the Islamic State (ISIS), which had seized territory across Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Although the Iraqi government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December 2017, remnants of the group ambush security forces, kidnap and execute suspected informants, and extort money from vulnerable rural populations, particularly in territories disputed by Baghdad and Erbil.
US troops currently stationed in Iraq mainly advise and assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the fight against ISIS remnants.
Getting US troops to leave the country has been a demand of Shiite political parties backed by Iran for years, but demands grew louder after the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January.
Last week, the Pentagon announced that it plans to pull more than 2,000 soldiers out of Iraq over the course of September, reducing the number of US troops in the country to 3,000.
Hours after today’s blast, prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned that the targeting of diplomatic missions and of institutes is driving Iraq into a “dark tunnel”.
“It is possible to follow the political and the parliamentarian paths to put an end to foreign troop presence in Iraq,” Sadr said on Twitter.
Updated at 3:29 pm
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