Contractor killed, US serviceman injured in Iraq rocket attack

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“Initial reports that indirect fire landed on coalition forces in Erbil this evening. One civilian contractor killed, 5 civilian contractors injured and 1 US service member injured. More to follow,” Marotto written on twitter.

According to initial reports, four of the five injured contractors are U.S. citizens, a defense official told CNN.

The nationality of the slain contractor has not been disclosed, although the defense official said initial reports suggested they were not American.

Earlier, a statement from the Interior Ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government indicated that several rockets had been launched towards the city.

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The regional government has called on residents to stay at home while authorities investigate the incident. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The United States is currently collecting intelligence to try to determine where the rockets were fired from, the defense official said.

Video from the scene showed that at least one of the rockets had landed on a busy urban street, sending a cloud of sparks and smoke into the air.

Erbil, which is located in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and hosts US troops, is expected to be one of the many cities Pope Francis visited in early March on a historic trip to Iraq.

The last rocket attack on US troops in Erbil occurred in September last year, when three rockets hit the US base in the area, while three more landed nearby. No US personnel were injured in this attack and no damage was reported. Suspicion immediately fell on the Iranian-backed militias, as the rockets were fired from an area under the control of a predominantly Shiite paramilitary force, Hashad al Shabbi, according to the Interior Ministry of the regional government of Kurdistan.

The attack came a day after the Trump administration told Iraqi leaders it would close the US embassy in Baghdad if Iranian-backed militias continued to target US personnel in the country. The threat followed the decision to withdraw thousands of US troops from Iraq in September, bringing the total number from 5,200 to around 3,000. The number was further reduced to 2,500 shortly before the president took office. Joe Biden. The then acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, said the withdrawal was in response to “the increased capacity of the Iraqi security forces.

Taylor Barnes of CNN contributed to this report.



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