Tue 29 September 2020:
Washington threatened to close its embassy and withdraw its 3,000 troops from the country unless rocket fire stops
Five civilians, including two women and three children, were killed by two Katyusha rockets at a house in Baghdad, fired by Iraqi armed groups, the Iraqi military said on Monday. It was the first time in months an attack led to civilian casualties.
The three Iraqi children and two women were from the same family and were killed when a rocket targeting Baghdad airport, where US troops are stationed, fell on their home instead, the army said in a statement.
The rockets were launched from the al-Jihad neighbourhood of Baghdad. The home was completely destroyed.
The military accused “cowardly criminal gangs and groups of outlaws” of seeking to “create chaos and terrorise people”.
A string of attacks has targeted Americans after Washington threatened to close its embassy and withdraw its 3,000 troops from the country unless rocket fire stops.
It said Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had ordered the arrest of the perpetrators and said “these gangs will not be allowed to go around and tamper with security” with impunity.
The deaths were the first among Iraqi civilians in the latest outbreak of violence, during which Iran-backed Iraqi Shia fighters have been blamed for targeting US interests in the country.
Previous attacks of the same nature have been claimed by murky groups saying they are acting against the “American occupier”. Analysts say they include former members of pro-Iranian factions of the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance.
Iraqi intelligence sources have blamed the attacks on a small group of hardline Iran-backed armed factions. The disparate nature of Shia fighters following the US assassination of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani and Iranian Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis has complicated Iraqi efforts to clamp down on rogue armed elements.
