Iraq

BAGHDAD, Aug 30 (NNN-NINA) – A Katyusha rocket on Saturday evening, landed inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, causing no human casualties, the Iraqi military said.

The rocket was fired from an area near the Qanat al-Jaish waterway, or Army Canal, in eastern Baghdad, and landed on an empty house in the Green Zone, where the U.S. embassy and some of the main Iraqi government offices are located, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said, in a brief statement.

30 Aug 2020; MEMO: A Katyusha rocket landed in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, causing damage to an empty building and no casualties, Iraqi police sources said on Saturday, Reuters reports.

Sirens blasted from the U.S. embassy inside the zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, and helicopters were hovering above, the sources said.

It was the second such attack this week after three rockets landed in the Green Zone on Thursday, also causing no casualties.

(AP) --- Shiite Muslims are observing the solemn holy day of Ashoura that they typically mark with large, mournful gatherings, in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ashoura commemorates the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in the Battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq with the army of then Caliph Yazid, to whom Hussein had refused to pledge allegiance.

29 Aug 2020; MEMO: The Central Bank of Iraq has decided to freeze the assets of nine former and current officials, including the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, on the grounds of non-payment of debts owed to the state.

This came in an official circular of Iraqi banks, issued late Thursday evening.

25 Aug 2020; MEMO: Iraq’s c on Sunday called on the government to take “urgent measures” following Iran’s decision to cut off the waters of Sirwan and Lower Zab that flow into the country.

The head of the Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture, Water and Marshlands, Salam Al-Shammari, declared in a statement: “Cutting off the waters of the two rivers by Iran will cause serious damage to Iraq.”

BAGHDAD, Aug 23 (NNN-NINA) – A roadside bomb exploded near a convoy of trucks, carrying equipment belonging to U.S. troops in western Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

The blast took place when the convoy was moving on a highway, near al-Ghazaliyah neighbourhood, in the western part of the Iraqi capital.

There was no immediate information about casualties, the official added.

CAMP TAJI, Iraq (Reuters) - United States-led international coalition troops withdrew from Iraq’s Taji military base on Sunday and handed it over to Iraqi security forces, Reuters witnesses and the coalition said.

The base, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias targeting U.S.-led troops in recent months.

(Reuters) - Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had just embarked on a state visit to Washington when gunmen shot dead the young protest leader Reham Yacoub in her car in Basra on Wednesday.

Yacoub, 29, was an outspoken critic of the Iran-backed militias whose power and influence Kadhimi has been trying to rein in since taking office in May.

The attack was the third on activists in the southern city in a week. Tahseen Oussama, 30, was gunned down on Aug. 14 and four others were shot at while together in a car Monday.

BAGHDAD, Aug 20 (NNN-NINA) — Two Iraqi women were shot dead yesterday, by unidentified gunmen, in Iraq’s southern city of Basra, a local security source said.

The attack took place in the afternoon, when gunmen opened fire from their assault rifles, on a sport utility vehicle (SUV), carrying four women, in a commercial street in Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (NNN-NINA) – A Katyusha rocket landed yesterday, in the heavily fortified Green Zone, in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the Iraqi military said.

A Katyusha rocket was fired from an area located near the al-Nahdha bus station, in downtown Baghdad, and landed on the zone, which houses some of the main Iraqi government offices and the U.S. embassy, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.