Two more terrorist US convoys targeted by roadside bombs in Iraq

Two more military and logistics convoys of the US-led terrorist coalition have been targeted by roadside bombs in Iraq, the Iraqi government says.

A Monday night statement by the Security Media Cell, affiliated with the Iraqi prime minister’s office, says the first roadside bomb exploded in a highway in the southern Iraqi province of Qadisiyah.

The second explosion also took place in Babil province in central Iraq.

“The two roadside bombs targeted the convoys of trucks carrying the international (US-led) coalition’s equipment,” the statement said, adding that the trucks were operated by Iraqi drivers and transportation companies.

The explosions have caused no damages, and the convoys have not been harmed, it added.

Rocket attack hits area near US embassy

Also on early Tuesday, a Katyusha rocket landed inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where the US embassy and many other diplomatic missions and government offices are located. 

According to security sources, the rocket fell near the American embassy and sirens were heard from the building.

Meanwhile, a correspondent with the Amman-based Al-Hadath news agency claims at least three of the missiles fired at the Green Zone have been shot down by air defenses over the US embassy.

“Video captured nearby shows air raid sirens roaring as the embassy’s counter rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) system engages the incoming targets.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the fresh attacks yet, but they are the latest in a series of explosions that hit US occupation forces amid anti-American sentiment in the country. Unidentified militant groups have frequently targeted convoys belonging to the US-led coalition forces in Iraq especially in the past few months.

On Friday, commander of US military forces in the Middle East raised concerns about surging attacks against American installations in Iraq, linking it to Iran’s vow to drive out US forces from the region but rejecting it as the reason for a major US troop reduction in the region.

“We have had more indirect fire attacks around and against our bases the first half of this year than we did the first half of last year,” said commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM) Gen. Frank McKenzie in an interview with the US-based NBC News. “Those attacks have been higher.”

“They have not been particularly lethal and that’s a good thing, but they are continuing,” McKenzie stated during the interview conducted while he toured the Middle East, and when asked why the attacks have not been lethal, he claimed: “They’re not hitting us.”

“For whatever reason, it may be by design, we don’t know, they’re just not that successful at hitting anyone. And that’s a blessing,” claimed the American commander “I don’t know how long we can count on that continuing.”

The allegations were made just hours after he declared the reduction of nearly half of US forces in Iraq by the end of this month, with almost 2,200 of them leaving the war-ravaged country.

The Iraqi-US relations have witnessed rising tension since January 3 when a US drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, assassinating the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Deputy Chief of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi forces Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Just two days later, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously passed a bill mandating the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

Iraqi resistance groups have pledged to take up arms against US forces if Washington fails to comply with the parliamentary order.