Rockets Hit US Embassy in Baghdad as Iran War Widens
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- Four rockets were launched at the US Embassy in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone — the first attack to land in the zone since the US and Israel began striking Iran last Saturday, according to an unnamed security official cited by AFP.
- Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered security forces to pursue the perpetrators, calling the attack a "terrorist act" and declaring that "rogue groups that operate outside the framework of the law in no way represent the will of the Iraqi people."
- An unidentified PMF official told AFP that "an air strike, likely American" hit a Popular Mobilisation Forces base south of Mosul in Nineveh governorate, killing at least one PMF fighter, according to the Iraqi government.
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted "separatist groups" in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, warning: "If separatist groups in the region make any move against Iran's territorial integrity, we will crush them."
- Explosions were heard Saturday in Erbil, home to a major US consulate complex, where drones have been repeatedly intercepted since the start of the war.
- A drone attack early Friday targeted the Baghdad airport complex, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, with several other drones intercepted near the airport.
- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would refrain from attacking neighboring states unless attacks were launched against his country from their territory.
Why it matters: The Green Zone strike is the most direct symbolic hit on US diplomatic infrastructure in Iraq since the war began, and it lands on the same day Iraq said a PMF fighter was killed in a likely US airstrike — widening the theater of conflict and putting Iraq's stated neutrality under immediate strain.
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