Iraqi air defences reportedly intercepted a wave of drones over the US embassy in Baghdad, while a prominent hotel in the heavily fortified Green Zone was struck by a drone.
According to Al Jazeera, a prominent hotel in central Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone was struck by a drone on March 16.
The strike on Monday evening hit the top floor of Al-Rasheed Hotel, causing damage but no casualties, as per two Iraqi security officials cited by The Associated Press (AP) news agency.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, security sources told the Reuters nthat two Katyusha rockets had been intercepted that evening near the US Embassy in the Green Zone, which houses diplomatic missions as well as international institutions and government offices.
Earlier Monday, the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah announced that Abu Ali Al-Askari, a prominent security official with the paramilitary group, had been killed, without giving details on the circumstances.
Kataib Hezbollah is one of the largest groups in the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) operating in Iraq, which was founded in 2014 to stop lightning advances by ISIL (ISIS).
On the same day, AP reported that six PMF fighters were killed in a strike on a checkpoint in western Iraq’s Anbar province, and two others were killed in a separate strike on the headquarters of a PMF brigade in the same area.
Two Iraqi security officials told AP that the Majnoon oilfield in Iraq’s southern Basra province was targeted by two drones.
It is worth noting that Iraq’s oil industry has been severely impacted by the US and Israel’s war on Iran and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil trading corridor.
