BAGHDAD, June 23 (NNN-NINA) – A Katyusha rocket landed near Baghdad International Airport on Monday, without causing casualty, the Iraqi military said.
The attack took place in the evening, when unknown militants fired the rocket from a village in Abu Ghraib in western Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
The attack came more than a week after the U.S. and Iraqi officials held a strategic video dialogue, where the United States pledged to continue cutting down on its forces in Iraq and confirmed that it does not seek permanent military presence in the country.
Iraqi-U.S. relations have witnessed a tension since Jan 3 when a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad’s airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.
The U.S. airstrike prompted the Iraqi parliament on Jan 5 to pass a resolution that requires the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.
More than 5,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the Iraqi forces in battles against the Daesh militants, mainly providing training and advising to the Iraqi forces.
