| schema:articleBody
| - A deadly rocket attack Wednesday on a military base in Iraq is the latest in a series targeting Western military or diplomatic installations there since late 2019, and comes after weeks of escalating US-Iran tensions on Iraqi soil. A US-led international coalition has been in Iraq since 2014 to help local forces fight the Islamic State jihadist group. Here is a summary of the attacks: Repeated mortar and rocket attacks target American interests in Iraq since October 2019. No one ever claims responsibility, but Washington blames pro-Iran factions. A US civilian contractor is killed on December 27 when around 30 rockets are fired at the K1 Iraqi military base in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region north of Baghdad. Two days later the US bombs a military base in western Iraq where Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Iraqi military faction close to Iran, is based. At least 25 fighters are killed. Pro-Iran protesters storm the US embassy compound in Baghdad on December 31, expressing fury over US strikes. A mob lights fires and chants "Death to America!" before withdrawing a day later. Tensions between Iran and the US peak in January 2020 following a US drone strike at Baghdad airport that kills Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. In retaliation, Iran launches a volley of missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US and other coalition troops, wounding dozens. Two months later, on March 11, a rocket kills two American soldiers and a British soldier, the deadliest rocket attack in years on an Iraqi military base hosting foreign troops. In response, air strikes kill 26 pro-Iran Iraqi paramilitaries on the Syrian border. Over the year, dozens more rockets and roadside bombs target Western security, military and diplomatic sites across Iraq -- some of them deadly. After a threat by the US to close down its embassy in Baghdad, Iraqi hardline groups agree to a truce in October 2020. There are intermittent violations, including a volley of rockets that explodes near the US embassy on December 20. Attacks resume on February 15, 2021, when a wave of rockets targets an airbase in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, killing one civilian and one foreign contractor working with the US-led coalition. The attack is claimed by a shadowy group calling itself "Awliyaa al-Dam" or "Guardians of Blood". Days later, more rockets hit a US military contracting company working north of the capital as well as the US embassy in Baghdad, causing several injuries. In response, the US carries out an air strike against a Kataeb Hezbollah position on Syria's eastern border with Iraq, killing one fighter. And on March 3, two days before Pope Francis is due to make the first-ever papal visit to Iraq, at least 10 rockets slam into the sprawling Ain al-Assad base in the western desert, leaving one civilian contractor dead from a heart attack. burs-eab/fg/fz
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)