Mortar attack grazes Baghdad’s Green Zone, misses US embassy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A mortar attack struck the outskirts of Baghdad’s Green Zone on Monday night, reportedly targeting but missing the US embassy in the second attack of its kind since May. No casualties as a result of the strike were reported.

“Two mortar shells fell. One [fell] in an empty dirt field at the outskirts of the Green Zone, and the second in the Tigris river in Baghdad,” Iraq’s Security Media Cell said in a post late on Monday, adding that no losses were incurred from the attack.

The Security Media Cell belongs to Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, composed of personnel from a number of Iraqi Army units.

Iraqi media outlet al-Sumaria reported prior to the Cell announcement that the two mortars fell near the US embassy in the Green Zone, and that two Green Zone checkpoints were temporarily closed as a precaution. Sirens wailed in response to the attack, al-Sumaria added.

Neither the Cell nor external media announced the party responsible for the attack.

This is the second such attack in four months. On May 19, 2019, a Katyusha rocket narrowly missed the US embassy in the Green Zone. The attack occurred days after the US ordered the withdrawal of non-emergency personnel from Iraq and warned its nationals of risk of violence or kidnapping amid soaring US-Iran tensions.

The Green Zone is home to Iraq’s parliament, embassies, and other foreign representative offices. Once subject to strict entry controls, the zone was opened up in June by Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in a sign of improving security in the country.

However, amid rising tensions between the US and its regional allies on side and Iran on the other, the presence of Iran-backed militias in Iraq has risked dragging the country into a war it has repeatedly said it wants to avoid.

As a result, Iraq’s Prime Minister ordered armed groups to halt attacks against US interests in Iraq.