SAMARRA/BAGHDAD: Five rockets Wednesday evening targeted Iraq’s Balad air base, with two of the projectiles falling near an area used by US contractors without causing casualties, a security official told AFP.
“There were no victims or damage,” the official said.
Balad air base, north of Baghdad, is used by US company Sallyport to service F-16 fighter jets flown by Iraq’s air force and has repeatedly been targeted by rocket fire.
Another US company, Lockheed Martin, withdrew its staff from the base last month amid concerns about the safety of its personnel.
At least three foreign subcontractors and one Iraqi subcontractor have been wounded in attacks on Balad.
Rockets also hit near a military base at Baghdad International Airport, the Iraqi army and security officials said.
Following the attack on the air base, security officials told Reuters at least one rocket hit shortly afterwards near the airport at a base which US military aircraft use.
The officials told AFP the attack was carried out with a “booby-trapped drone” — a technique increasingly used by pro-Iran groups.
The US routinely blames such attacks — which also regularly target US interests at other installations, including Baghdad airport — on Iran-backed factions.
US troops are in Iraq as part of a military coalition that was established to fight the jihadist Daesh group — a campaign that Iraq’s government declared won in late 2017.
The rocket attacks are seen as a means to pressure Washington into removing all its remaining personnel, whom Iran-linked factions view as an occupying force.
In mid-April, pro-Iran fighters sent an explosives-packed drone crashing into Irbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base housing US troops in Iraq.
(With AFP and Reuters)
Five rockets target Iraq base housing US contractors: security source
https://arab.news/5j73f
Five rockets target Iraq base housing US contractors: security source
Lebanese finance minister denies any plans for a Kushner-run economic zone in the south
- Proposal was made by US Envoy Morgan Ortagus but was ‘killed on the spot’
- Priority is to regain control of state in all aspects, Yassine Jaber tells Arab News
DAVOS: Lebanon’s finance minister dismissed any plans of turning Lebanon’s battered southern region into an economic zone, telling Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos that the proposal had died “on the spot.”
Yassine Jaber explained that US Envoy to Lebanon Morgan Ortagus had proposed the idea for the region, which has faced daily airstrikes by Israel, and it was immediately dismissed.
Jaber’s comments, made to Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, were in response to reports which appeared in Lebanese media in December which suggested that parts of southern Lebanon would be turned into an economic zone, managed by a plan proposed by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son in law.
Meanwhile, Jaber also dismissed information which had surfaced in Davos over the past two days of a bilateral meeting between Lebanese ministers, US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and Kushner.
Jaber said that the meeting on Tuesday was a gathering of “all Arab ministers of finance and foreign affairs, where they (Witkoff and Kushner) came in for a small while, and explained to the audience the idea about deciding the board of peace for Gaza.”
He stressed that it did not develop beyond that.
When asked about attracting investment and boosting the economy, Jaber said: “The reality now is that we need to reach the situation where there is stability that will allow the Lebanese army, so the (Israeli) aggression has to stop.”
Over the past few years, Lebanon has witnessed one catastrophe after another: one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, the largest non-nuclear explosion in its capital’s port, a paralyzed parliament and a war with Israel.
A formal mechanism was put in place between Lebanon and Israel to maintain a ceasefire and the plan to disarm Hezbollah in areas below the Litani river.
But, the minister said, Israel’s next step is not always so predictable.
“They’re actually putting pressure on the whole region. So, a lot of effort is being put on that issue,” he added.
“There are still attacks in the south of the country also, so stability is a top necessity that will really succeed in pushing the economy forward and making the reforms beneficial,” he said.
Lawmakers had also enacted reforms to overhaul the banking sector, curb the cash economy and abolish bank secrecy, alongside a bank resolution framework.
Jaber also stressed that the government had recently passed a “gap law” intended to help depositors recover funds and restore the banking system’s functionality.
“One of the priorities we have is really to deal with all the losses of the war, basically reconstruction … and we have started to get loans for reconstructing the destroyed infrastructure in the attacked areas.”
As Hezbollah was battered during the war, Lebanon had a political breakthrough as the army’s general, Joseph Aoun, was inaugurated as president. His chosen prime minister was the former president of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam.
This year marks the first time a solid delegation from the country makes its way to Davos, with Salam being joined by Jaber, Economy and Trade Minister Amr Bisat, and Telecoms Minister Charles Al-Hage.
“Our priority is to really regain the role of the state in all aspects, and specifically in rebuilding the institutions,” Jaber said.
