Rocket attack on Baghdad Green Zone foiled

Baghdad, July 11 (IANS) Iraqi security forces announced that it foiled a Katyusha rocket attack targeting the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.The troops found the rocket in al-Qanat Street in eastern Baghdad and dismantled it, Xinhua news agency quoted the Iraqi Joint Operations Command as saying in a statement on Friday without giving further details about the incident.No group has so far claimed responsibility. The military bases housing US troops across Iraq and the American embassy in the Green Zone have been frequently targeted by insurgent mortar and rocket attacks.The attacks came as the Iraqi-US relations have witnessed heightened tension since January 3 when an American drone struck a convoy near the Baghdad airport, which killed Qasem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.The US airstrike prompted the Iraqi parliament to pass a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.More than 5,000 US troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the domestic forces in the battles against the Islamic State militants, mainly providing training and advising.
--IANS ksk/