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by IANS |
Baghdad, March 14 (IANS) The US Embassy in Baghdad was hit by a drone on Saturday, with no immediate information on casualties, a security source said.
A booby-trapped drone struck the embassy in the Green Zone at dawn, no immediate information on casualties was available, and smoke was seen rising from the site, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source told Xinhua news agency on condition of anonymity.
The attack followed a "US airstrike" about an hour earlier on a residential area in the Karrada neighbourhood in Baghdad, which killed a senior leader and two members of Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), and wounded five civilians in neighbouring houses, the ministry source said.
Meanwhile, in an official statement, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command's Security Media Cell (SMC) condemned the dangerous and unprecedented escalation of targeting civilians and carrying out strikes within densely populated residential areas. The SMC called it an attack on human rights and said the act should be internationally classified as a crime.
On March 7, the US embassy in Baghdad was targeted by rockets, and explosions were heard, triggering its defence systems.
Over the past few days, dozens of PMF members have been killed in attacks, for which the group blamed US-Israeli operations.
The attacks came amid heightened tensions following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran starting February 28, to which Iran and its regional proxies responded with attacks on Israeli and US interests across the Middle East.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said military operations against Iran were "going very well" and claimed American forces had delivered "very big hits" as the conflict intensified across the Middle East.
Speaking briefly to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Friday, Trump described the military campaign as successful and suggested Iran's capabilities had been severely degraded.
"The situation in Iran is going very well. A lot of big hits today. A lot of big wins today, as you probably have heard," Trump said. "I think it's going very well, and it's very good control."
The President said the operation was aimed at eliminating what he described as a nuclear threat emanating from Iran.
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