BAGHDAD: New rocket attacks in Iraq have killed a US civilian contractor, raising fears on Saturday that violence could escalate in the protest-hit country already engulfed in its worst political crisis in decades.
Washington recently promised “a firm response” to a growing number of attacks on its interests in Iraq, for which no one has claimed responsibility but which Washington blames on pro-Iran factions. In the latest attack, 30 rockets were fired at the K1 Iraqi military base in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region north of Baghdad, at 2220 GMT on Friday, a US official said in Washington.
“One US civilian contractor was killed and several US service members and Iraqi personnel were wounded,” the US-led international coalition against the IS group said.
A direst hit on an ammunition depot caused secondary explosions, and four more rockets were found in their tubes in a truck at the launch point, a US official said on condition of anonymity. Federal security forces, fighter units and IS group sleeper cells all have a presence in volatile Kirkuk province, which is claimed by both Iraq’s Kurdistan and federal authorities.
The attacks come at a time when Iraq is gripped by its biggest wave of anti-government street protests since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Violence has claimed nearly 460 lives, most of them protesters, and left some 25,000 people wounded, but the street rallies and sit-in protests have continued.
The protests led to the resignation of the Iraqi government nearly a month ago, and Iran and its allies in Iraq have since been pushing to place one of their men in the post of prime minister, sparking more popular anger.
The president is now threatening to quit in the face of this pressure.
During the period of wider political chaos, the country has also seen a rise of rocket and mortar attacks against Iraqi bases housing US soldiers and against American diplomatic missions.
Ten attacks since October 28 have left several Iraqi military personnel wounded and one dead and caused damage to the area around the US Embassy in Baghdad’s ultra-secure Green Zone.
Five rockets hit Al Asad air base on December 3, just four days after US Vice-President Mike Pence visited troops there. And more than a dozen rockets hit the Qayyarah air base in northern Iraq in November.
In Friday’s attack, a Kirkuk provincial security official said, “the shots were very accurate. The attack was aimed precisely at the area where the Americans are located, near the meeting room.”
The rockets could also have been much more deadly, had it not been for recent poor weather that has led to delays in anti-IS operations and the postponement of a meeting scheduled for Friday on these missions, according to the Iraqi police. — AFP
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