Five wounded in rocket attack on Iraq base hosting Americans

Five rockets targeted an Iraqi airbase hosting US soldiers Sunday, wounding two foreign contractors and three Iraqi soldiers, in the latest attack coinciding with tensions between Baghdad's allies Tehran and Washington.

Two of the rockets fired at Balad airbase, north of Baghdad, crashed into a dormitory and a canteen of US company Sallyport, a security source told AFP.

Two foreign contractors and three Iraqi soldiers were wounded, the source added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the United States routinely blames Iran-linked Iraqi factions for such attacks on its troops and diplomats.

F-16 fighters are stationed at the Balad airbase, and several maintenance companies are present there, employing Iraqi and foreign staff.

There have been around 20 bomb or rocket attacks against American interests, including bases hosting US soldiers, since US President Joe Biden took office in January.

Dozens of others took place from the autumn of 2019 under the administration of Donald Trump.

Two Americans and an Iraqi civilian have been killed in such attacks since late 2019.

An Iraqi civilian working for a firm maintaining US fighter jets for the Iraq airforce was also wounded in one attack.

The Balad base was also targeted earlier this month, without causing any casualties.

The attacks are sometimes claimed by shadowy Shiite armed groups aligned with Iran who are demanding the Biden administration set a pullout date for Iraq as it has for Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, an explosives-packed drone slammed into Iraq's Arbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base used by US-led coalition troops in the country, officials said.

There were no casualties in the strike on the capital of northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, although it did cause damage to a building in the military part of the airport.

In February, more than a dozen rockets targeted the military complex inside the same airport, killing an Iraqi civilian and a foreign contractor working with US-led troops.

Pro-Iran groups have been ratcheting up their rhetoric, vowing to ramp up attacks to force out the "occupying" US forces, and there have been almost daily attacks on coalition supply convoys across the mainly Shiite south.

The United States last week committed to withdraw all remaining combat forces from Iraq, although the two countries did not set a timeline for what would be a second US withdrawal since the 2003 invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.

- Sworn foes -

The announcement came as the Biden administration resumed a "strategic dialogue" with the government of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi, who is seen as too close to Washington by pro-Iranian groups.

Biden last week announced a full US pullout from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks that also led to the US-led invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq three years later.

Sworn foes Tehran and Washington have both since had a presence in Iraq, where 2,500 US troops are still deployed and Iran sponsors the Hashed al-Shaabi, a state-integrated paramilitary coalition.

Tensions have spiked to the edge of war, in particular after Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad airport in January 2020 that killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.

Jihad and jokes? Iraqis aren't laughing
Baghdad (AFP) April 21, 2021 - A camera follows a celebrity visiting an Iraqi family displaced by conflict, when they're ambushed by jihadists. The star is convinced they're done for until troops come to the rescue.

What looks like a close shave is, in fact, a candid camera-style television show airing during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that takes tricking celebrities for laughs to a new level.

And it's causing a scandal in Iraq, along with accusations of bad taste.

The scene is the same every time: a celebrity, invited for a charitable project, visits the home of a family said to have escaped the clutches of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Once inside, actors disguised as jihadists pounce. The jihadists may be fake, but the pleas of the trapped celebrities are very real.

When star footballer Alaa Mhawi appeared on the show called "Tanneb Rislan", he found himself on his knees, blindfolded, begging for his life.

"I'm your brother, I'm Iraqi and I represent the whole nation," he shouts, on the verge of tears.

But once the ruse is revealed, the celebrities can't complain too much.

The series is underwritten by the powerful state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition.

Its fighters were central to a grinding military campaign that by mid-2017 had dislodged IS from the string of cities it seized three years earlier.

- 'This isn't entertainment' -

And these paramilitaries, still armed, have their own role in the show, saving the day.

At the end of the episode featuring Mhawi, the international footballer also had to suffer a professional putdown.

"You fly the Iraqi flag on the football pitch, but the Hashed, the army and police, they do it by sacrificing martyrs," the presenter said.

Nessma, an actress in her fifties, didn't plead for her life. Instead, she passed out after a fake explosive belt was strapped to her waist.

She stayed unconscious for several minutes until the presenter, in Hashed uniform, emptied a bottle of water on her face.

"This isn't entertainment," Bilal al-Mosuli, a resident of Mosul, the self-proclaimed "capital" of IS in Iraq from 2014 to 2017, wrote on Twitter.

Another Iraqi, Ahmed Abderradi, expressed disbelief at the show on Facebook.

"Next year, we'll have Saddam", he joked bitterly, referring to the dictator who terrorised Iraqis from 1979 to 2003, Saddam Hussein.

"Or we can throw guests into a river like the victims of Speicher," he wrote, referring to the 2014 Camp Speicher massacre, when IS executed 1,700 Shiite conscripts and dumped their bodies in the Tigris.

- 'Free advertising' -

For years, entrapping stars has become a staple of primetime Ramadan shows on Arab satellite channels.

But this is the first time an Iraqi programme has combined the formula with "terrorism", which is still a real threat in Iraq.

"I don't see what pleasure you could get watching these people being tortured in this way," another viewer wrote on social media.

The programme also broadcasts mock executions and shootings "with blanks", according to a disclaimer at the start.

For others, however, the show salutes anti-IS fighters.

"But it's possible to show the bravery of the Hashed and Iraqi troops without introducing terrorism," tweeted Noor Ghazi, an Iraqi living in the United States.

Jihadist violence is still a fact of life in Iraq.

The home of the so-called displaced family in the show is located in the agricultural belt outside Baghdad where IS sleeper cells still intimidate and extort locals.

According to social media user Hamed al-Daamy, "the show is giving free advertising to IS and other terrorist groups".

A writer of the show, Dargham Abu Rghif, has sprung to its defence.

"The scenes are harsh but... if IS had won, artists would have had a far harder life, and all Iraqis too," he wrote on Facebook.

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