Four rockets fired at Balad Air Base: Iraqi military

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Four rockets were fired at Balad Air Base in Iraq’s Salahaddin province on Saturday night, the Iraqi Security Media Cell has said. One contractor was injured in the attack, security officials told AP.

The injured contractor worked for Sallyport, a US defense company services combat aircraft inside Balad base targeted by one of the rockets, four security officials told AP; one of the officials said the contractor was South African.

In its statement on the attack, Iraqi Security Media Cell denied the injury of the contractor at the base located 64 kilometers north of Baghdad.

Rocket attacks on foreign military and diplomatic sites in Iraq are frequent, especially since Washington's assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi).

Iran-backed Iraqi militias have claimed responsibility for some of the rocket attacks. Balad was subject to rocket fire last year, including an attack in January that wounded four members of the Iraqi Air Force, including two officers.

Saturday’s rocket fire comes less than a week after 14 rockets landed inside and near Erbil International Airport, which has a military section where US-led Coalition forces are present. One civilian contractor was killed and fourteen people were wounded in the attack, including members of the US-led Coalition.

The attack also follows NATO’s announcement earlier this week that it would dramatically scale up its presence in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government to help fight terrorism, with its troop numbers to increase from 500 personnel to 4,000.

The US Secretary of Defense said that Monday's rocket attack on Erbil confirms the importance of the country's "continued work" in the region, and welcomed NATO's decision to expand its mission in Iraq.

Iraq's parliament passed a non-binding resolution in favor of expelling foreign troops a few days after the assassinations of Muhandis and Soleimani. Discussions in the months after the vote included expanding NATO's role as a compromise.