Rocket Hits Military Base Near Baghdad Airport

A member of the Iraqi security forces walks past a destroyed vehicle that was carrying rockets amid sacks of flour, in the district of al-Baghdadi in al-Anbar province on July 8, 2021. (AFP Photo)
A member of the Iraqi security forces walks past a destroyed vehicle that was carrying rockets amid sacks of flour, in the district of al-Baghdadi in al-Anbar province on July 8, 2021. (AFP Photo)
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Rocket Hits Military Base Near Baghdad Airport

A member of the Iraqi security forces walks past a destroyed vehicle that was carrying rockets amid sacks of flour, in the district of al-Baghdadi in al-Anbar province on July 8, 2021. (AFP Photo)
A member of the Iraqi security forces walks past a destroyed vehicle that was carrying rockets amid sacks of flour, in the district of al-Baghdadi in al-Anbar province on July 8, 2021. (AFP Photo)

A Katyusha rocket hit an Iraqi military base hosting US forces near Baghdad's international airport on Wednesday, Iraqi security and military sources said.

The sources said that nobody was hurt in the incident.

The US led-coalition in Syria struck several launch sites for short-range rockets believed to be intended for attacks on an installation used by US troops in eastern Syria, officials said Tuesday.

The strikes against the launch sites apparently were conducted by US forces, but a statement issued by the coalition did not specify who carried them out. The statement offered few details beyond saying the sites “posed an imminent threat in the vicinity of Green Village, Syria,” and were struck in self-defense.

The pre-emptive attack on the sites followed two separate incidents this week in Iraq in which explosives-laden drones were shot down before they could attack an Iraqi military base housing US troops in western Iraq and a facility housing US advisers at Baghdad airport.



Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.