Europe1 .fr with AFP/Photo credits: NICOLAS ADAMY / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 12:31 p.m., October 23, 2023

The Iraqi government on Monday described as "unacceptable" attacks on bases housing US soldiers on its soil in recent days, attacks that have multiplied after the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas.

Since Wednesday, at least five drone and rocket attacks have targeted three Iraqi bases where US troops and the international anti-jihadist coalition are deployed. One of them left "minor injuries," according to the U.S. military.

"The attacks on Iraqi bases where advisers from the international coalition in Iraq are hosted are unacceptable," Yahya Rasul, the Iraqi prime minister's spokesman for military affairs, said in a statement.

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"Islamic Resistance in Iraq"

Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani "ordered the security services" to "find the elements who carried out these attacks", he added. Most of the attacks were claimed by a group called the "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" on Telegram channels affiliated with Shiite factions loyal to Israel's arch-enemy Iran, which was the target of a deadly attack on an unprecedented scale on October 7 by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Without referring directly to the attacks on Iraqi bases, the United States, an ally of Israel, on Friday ordered the evacuation of non-essential staff from its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Iraqi government is backed by pro-Iranian parties and has repeatedly condemned Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7 attack. But Baghdad must also preserve its relations with the United States, whose 2,500 soldiers are deployed in Iraq to advise and train the Iraqi army.

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More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians shot, burned alive or maimed on the day of the attack, according to authorities. In the Gaza Strip, more than 4,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including nearly 1,900 children, according to Hamas' health ministry, were killed in Israeli retaliatory bombings.