A rocket attack targeting U.S. personnel housed at a base in Iraq’s western desert injured several American troops late on Monday, according to U.S. defense officials.
The attack on Ain al Asad Air Base resembled previous ones carried out by Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups, which have targeted the base repeatedly over the past years and which have intensified after Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza began in October.
At least two rockets hit inside the base’s perimeter, according to a U.S. official and Iraqis witnesses near the site of the attack. The base had been targeted at least twice in the past two weeks.
The attack comes as tensions are running especially high in the region, with Israel and its American, European and regional allies bracing for a reprisal attack from Iran in response to the killings last week of a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran; and a Hezbollah leader, Fuad Shukr, in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israel has said it carried the attack on Mr. Shukr, but has said nothing about the one in Iran. Iranian officials and Hamas have said that Israel was responsible for Mr. Haniyeh’s killing.
The Iranian government has said that any retaliatory attack will also involve its proxy forces, including Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and militants in Iraq. The region has been on high alert for a broad onslaught, similar to Iran’s attack on Israel in April, which was in response to Israel’s killing of three senior leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and five other Revolutionary Guard officials in Damascus, Syria.
It was not clear if the rocket attack on Monday at Al Asad Air Base was part of that response or a continuation of ongoing efforts by the Iran-backed groups in Iraq to target U.S. forces stationed in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government.
There are about 2,500 American troops in Iraq, as well as 900 troops in Syria, who are involved in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State.
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