A civilian contractor was killed and five others were injured in a rocket attack on Monday at a US-led military base in northern Kurdish Iraq, which also left an American military with a concussion, according to American officials.
The explosion in Erbil was the deadliest attack to target US-led forces in Iraq in nearly a year.
The dead contractor was not an American, and of the injured civilians, four are from the United States and one from Turkey.
“We are outraged by today’s rocket attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement late on Monday. “We express our condolences to the loved ones of the civilian contractor killed in this attack, and to the innocent Iraqi people and their families who are suffering these relentless acts of violence. I spoke with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan regional government, Masrour Barzani, to discuss the incident and pledge our support to all efforts to investigate and hold those responsible responsible.
The central government in Baghdad said it was forming a committee with the Kurdistan Regional Government to investigate the attack because it believes that the rockets were launched from an area that is not under the control of the Kurds.
Kurdish security sources said at least three rockets landed near Erbil International Airport in the autonomous region late at night.
US troops occupy a military base adjacent to the civilian airport.
A statement from the Kurdish Interior Ministry said several rockets were fired at Erbil and its surroundings at around 9:30 pm local time, and some people were injured, but offered no further details.
The latest deadly attack on the coalition killed a British and two Americans in March.
