Two American and British soldiers and one civilian killed in Iraq

• 18 rockets landed on the military base in Tiji, Iraq.
• Three people were killed: two American and British soldiers and a civilian
• The international coalition responded with air strikes against Iranian positions two months after the fierce tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Last December, the death of an American subcontractor ignited the region. Rocket fire at an Iraqi military base killed three people on Wednesday, including two American and British soldiers, marking an escalation in tensions between Washington and its allies on the one hand, and Tehran and its proxies on the other.

UPDATE: 3 Coalition personnel were killed during a rocket attack on Camp Taji, March 11. Names of personnel are withheld pending next of kin notification. Camp Taji is an Iraqi base that hosts @CJTFOIR personnel for anti-ISIS training & advising missions. Full statement below. pic.twitter.com/tDwxNwqNOZ

After this attack - the deadliest recorded against a base sheltering American soldiers for several years -, air raids targeted positions of Iranian deputies on the border between Iraq and Syria, told AFP the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel Rahmane. The raids killed 18 Iraqi paramilitaries, the same source said.

3 dead and 12 injured

The rocket attacks are the 22nd attack since the end of October against American interests in Iraq. They were not claimed, but Washington - which leads the international anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq - regularly attributes these attacks to pro-Iranian Iraqi factions. After the air strikes, which could be reprisals, the specter of new violence hangs in Iraq, where the tensions between the two great allies of power in Baghdad, Tehran and Washington, have already degenerated in recent months.

Two soldiers, one American and the other British, as well as an American subcontractor were killed Wednesday evening on the Iraqi base of Taji, in the north of Baghdad, an American military official told AFP. The international anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States said that 18 rockets had been fired, also injuring 12, without specifying their nationality. The coalition has dozens of member states, including the United States, which has deployed 5,200 troops to various military bases in Iraq.

Two months since the death of Soleimani

A few hours later, "ten explosions" shook an area south of the Syrian city of Boukamal, bordering Iraq, Abdel Rahmane reported to AFP. "Three planes probably from the international coalition have targeted Iranian positions and allied armed factions, including the Iraqi Hachd al-Chaabi," said the director of the OSDH, referring to this coalition of paramilitaries now integrated into the Iraqi regular forces. . At least "18 Iraqi fighters" from Hashd al-Chaabi were killed, the source said.

Regularly, one or more rockets fall on bases welcoming American soldiers or on the ultra-secure Green Zone of Baghdad where the American Embassy sits. But the number of rockets launched on Wednesday is particularly high.

Two days after the death of an American in the firing of 30 rockets at an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk (north) at the end of 2019, the American army had struck five bases, in Iraq and in Syria, of an armed faction pro- Iran, Hezbollah brigades, killing 25 in its ranks.

Tensions then increased between Washington and Tehran, leading to the assassination in Baghdad of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant in an American strike, as well as to Iranian bombings of Iraqi bases sheltering American soldiers in reprisals.

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