At least ten rockets fell on Wednesday, March 3, on a base housing American soldiers in western Iraq, killing a civilian subcontractor, two days before Pope Francis' historic visit to the country.
The latter also declared to maintain his trip from March 5 to 8 in Iraq, after his traditional Wednesday audience, stressing that he wanted "to meet a people who have suffered so much, to meet this martyred Church".
This new attack, already preceded by several with the same modus operandi over the past two weeks, reminds us of how the first visit of a sovereign pontiff to Iraq is a logistical headache.
>> To see, our Interview: "Masrour Barzani: rocket fire at an Erbil base is a 'terrorist attack'"
In addition to the health restrictions taken in an attempt to stem a worrying second wave of Covid-19 in the country, the tensions between the two powers operating in Iraq, Iran and the United States, are an additional obstacle to the success of the papal program.
Of the ten rockets fired at the Iraqi Ain al-Assad air base, several fell inside the section where American soldiers and drones of the international anti-jihadist coalition are stationed, security sources said. Iraqi and Western.
A civilian subcontractor whose nationality was not immediately known died of a heart attack as a result of the attack, these sources said.
"The Iraqi security forces are leading the investigation," Colonel Wayne Marotto, US spokesperson for the coalition, said on Twitter, while Washington regularly points the finger at the pro-Iran armed factions for these attacks, which have multiplied in recent weeks.
Initial report: 10 IDF rockets targeted an Iraqi military base, Al Asad Airbase, hosting Coalition troops, on March 03, 2021 at approx 7:20 am (Iraqi time).
Iraqi SF are leading the response & investigation.
Further information will be released as it becomes available.
- OIR Spokesman Col.
Wayne Marotto (@OIRSpox) March 3, 2021
The Iraqi security source said the projectiles were fired from a village near Ain al-Assad, a desert region where armed men can easily set up launching ramps - sometimes aboard pick-ups or vehicles - , fire projectiles and quickly leave.
Rockets "made in Iran"
The Iraqi military command reported that the rockets were of the "Grad" type.
More precisely of the "Arash" type, detailed to AFP Western security sources, Iranian manufacture and more imposing than the rockets used until recently.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States both have a presence or allies in Iraq.
Washington, at the head of the coalition fighting the Islamic State organization, has some 2,500 soldiers there, while Iran has, among others, the support of Hachd al-Chaabi, a powerful coalition of paramilitaries integrated into the Iraqi state and composed of mainly from armed factions financed and armed by Tehran.
While Iraq experienced relative calm in the fall with the announcement of a pro-Iran truce in the face of threats from the United States to withdraw all its soldiers and diplomats from the country altogether, a further escalation has recently. started.
Washington's reprisals in Syria
In February, rockets fell near the US embassy in Baghdad, followed by others targeting Balad air base further north, injuring an Iraqi employee of a US company responsible for maintaining F-16s.
Rockets also hit a military base housing the coalition at the airport in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, long seen as a haven of peace in a war-torn Middle East.
Two people were killed, including a foreign civilian contractor working with the coalition.
In response, the United States raided Iraqi militiamen fighting on behalf of Iran in Syria on February 26.
The US Department of Defense announced that it had killed one of them and injured two others.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), at least 22 Iraqi militia fighters perished in the raid.
Washington regularly threatens Iran with the worst, especially when one of its nationals is killed.
At the start of 2020, such a spiral had almost degenerated into open conflict on Iraqi soil, when then US President Donald Trump sprayed the car of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad with a drone, in response to the death of Americans in Iraq.
No walkabout for the Pope
Pope Francis is expected in Baghdad on Friday and in Erbil on Sunday, where he is due to celebrate mass in a stadium that will be filled with the faithful.
He has no planned stopover in the desert west of the country, but will pass through Mosul, a former jihadist stronghold in the north where many factions are now deployed, including Hachd al-Chaabi.
Due to the precarious security stability and the Covid-19 pandemic, the Argentine sovereign pontiff will be deprived of the crowds he loves.
In addition, to ward off the worst, national confinement will be decreed throughout the papal visit, from Friday to Monday.
With AFP
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