Missile attack targets military base housing US forces Iraq

On Feb 14, 2020 3:22 PM

Mandatory Credit: Photo by AP/Shutterstock (9215359a) U.S. Marines are stationed in al-Asad air base in Anbar, Iraq. The US-led coalition's newest outpost in the fight against the Islamic State group is in this dusty corner of western Iraq near the border with Syria where several hundred American Marines operate close to the battlefront, a key factor in the recent series of swift victories against the extremists Marines, Anbar, Iraq - 08 Nov 2017

SANAA, Feb. 14 (YPA) – A missile attack hit an Iraqi base in the province of Kirkuk where the US troops are stationed, Iraqi media reported on Thursday night.

No reports of casualties have been reported so far.

The base is located 15 km to the northwest of Kirkuk and it houses US military forces as well as Iraqi forces from the Federal Police and Counter-Terrorism Service.

Last time the K1 base was attacked was on 27 December, when a US contractor was killed there in a rocket assault Washington blamed on the Kataeb Hezbollah military group.

The attack comes in retaliation for the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) by US airstrikes, which took place on 3 January 2020 around 1:00 a.m. local time (22:00 UTC 2 January), by US airstrikes near Baghdad International Airport.

E.M