Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “outraged” by a rocket attack on a US-led military base in northern Iraq, which killed one contractor and wounded six others – including an American military on Monday.
Why it matters: While it is unclear who carried out the attack on the normally peaceful Kurdish city of Erbil, it came amid rising tensions over the threat from Iran-backed militias against US targets in Iraq, according to the New York Times.
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- Militias have already been accused of previous attacks in Iraq.
Details: A flurry of rockets was fired at residential areas in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, during the attack, with a landing near the Chinese Consulate, the NYT reported.
- Blinken said the initial reports “indicate that the attacks killed a civilian contractor and injured several members of the Coalition, including an American military and several American contractors”.
- He said he had contacted the prime minister of the Kurdistan regional government, Masrour Barzani, “to discuss the incident and pledge our support for all efforts to investigate and hold those responsible responsible”.
Editor’s note: this article has been updated with more details about the attack.