BAGHDAD: Three mortar shells landed inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone just after midnight local time on Friday, the Iraqi military said in a statement.
The mortars landed on an “abandoned lot,” resulting in “no casualties or physical damage,” the statement said.
A security source inside the Green Zone said the mortars landed near the Egyptian embassy.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes after days of intensifying protests in Iraq’s southern oil hub city of Basra.
Hundreds of protesters, angry over the neglect of their city’s collapsing infrastructure, took to the streets for a fourth day on Thursday, setting fire to political party offices and government buildings.
The mortar attack is the first such one in several years on the Green Zone, which houses parliament, government buildings and many foreign embassies.
In May 2016, three mortars landed near the Green Zone. Anti-corruption protesters, led by populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, breached the Green Zone twice that year, storming parliament and the cabinet office.
Sadr is now vying to form Iraq’s ruling coalition in an alliance with incumbent Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, his electoral bloc having come first in May’s national election.
The Green Zone was regularly targeted by mortars during the US occupation of Iraq that ended in 2011.
Three mortars land inside Baghdad’s green zone - Iraqi military statement
Three mortars land inside Baghdad’s green zone - Iraqi military statement
- The mortars landed on an “abandoned lot,” resulting in “no casualties or physical damage,” the statement said
- No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack
20 Palestinian families abandon homes near Jericho after repeated attacks by settlers
- The families belong to Az-Zayed clan, one of the few remaining Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and Jordan Valley
LONDON: Repeated attacks by Israeli settlers have forced 20 Palestinian families to leave their homes in the Shallal Al-Auja community north of Jericho and move to another area, Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights said on Tuesday.
The families belong to Az-Zayed clan, one of the few remaining Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and Jordan Valley, the organization said. Their way of life is under threat as a result of settler policies, as well as limited access to water and land, it added.
The clan has faced an increase in attacks by settlers in recent months, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported, including threats, denial of access to pastures, and vandalism of properties.
Al-Baidar said that actions of the settlers “were an integral part of a structured scheme to displace indigenous Palestinians from the Jordan Valley and take over their land to make room for colonial settlement construction.”
Excluding East Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, there are about 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.
