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At least 10 rockets hit a military base in western Iraq that housed the US-led coalition troops, security sources said, leaving a civilian contractor dead.
The attack on Ain al-Assad’s sprawling base in Iraq’s western desert comes after several weeks of intense tensions between the United States and Iran on Iraqi soil, and just two days before Pope Francis’ historic visit to Iraq.
Ain al-Assad is home to both Iraqi forces and US-led coalition troops that help fight the Islamic State group, as well as the unmanned drones that the coalition uses to monitor jihadist sleeper cells.
Coalition spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto confirmed that ten rockets reached the base at 7:20 am (04:20 GMT), while Iraqi security forces said they had found the platform from which ten “Grad-type rockets” hit the base of Ain al-Assad.
Western security sources told AFP that the rockets were Iranian-made Arash models, which are 122mm artillery rockets and heavier than those seen in similar attacks.
“A civilian contractor died of a heart attack during the attack,” a high-level security source told AFP, adding that he could not confirm the contractor’s nationality.
The death marks the third death in rocket attacks in recent weeks, after rockets targeting US-led troops in the Kurdish regional capital of Arbil left two dead.
Dozens of roadside bombs and rocket attacks have targeted Western security, military and diplomatic sites in Iraq in 2020, with Iraqi and Western military sources blaming hard-line pro-Iranian factions.
They came to a near complete halt in October after a truce with the hard line, but have resumed at a fast pace for the past three weeks.
In mid-February, rockets struck US-led coalition troops in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil, a US military contractor company that works north of the capital and the US embassy in Baghdad.
Days later, more rockets hit a US military contractor working north of the capital and the US embassy in Baghdad.
Despite the escalation in recent weeks, Pope Francis appears determined to go ahead with the first papal visit to Iraq on Friday.
While he is not scheduled to be in the west of the country, he will spend time in Baghdad and Arbil, both affected by rocket attacks last month.
Iraq is simultaneously affected by a second wave of the coronavirus, recording more than 4,500 new cases a day in the country of 40 million.
To stop the spread and control crowds during the Pope’s visit, Iraq is set to extend its weekend closures to include the entirety of the papal visit from March 5-8.
Pope says he should go to Iraq because you can’t let people down
Pope Francis has said he will go to Iraq, where his predecessor John Paul was not allowed to go in 2000, because “you cannot let people down a second time.”
Pope Francis, who is about to leave on Friday, asked for prayers so that the visit “takes place in the best possible way and produces the desired fruits.”
He did not mention security problems in Iraq.
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