Iraqi security forces said the explosion rocked a U.S.-led coalition military base at Baghdad International Airport on Tuesday night, a day before a visit by Iran’s president.
“At 23:00 hours an explosion was heard at Baghdad International Airport, in an area occupied by international coalition advisers,” said a statement issued by the spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Iraqi Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji.
“Iraqi security forces were unable to determine the source of the explosion,” said a statement issued by Iraqi security forces and also carried by the state news agency INA. Air traffic was not affected and flights were not disrupted.
Jafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah organization, said: “The aim of the attack on Baghdad airport is to disrupt the visit of the Iranian president. Today the Iranian president plans to visit Baghdad.”
A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that “two Katyusha-type rockets” caused the explosion. “One fell on the wall of a compound of Iraqi anti-terrorist forces. The second ended up inside the base housing the international coalition against the jihadists led by Washington,” the official said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was scheduled to visit Iraq on Wednesday on his first foreign trip since taking office in July. Relations between Iran and Iraq, both majority Shiite countries, have grown closer over the past two decades. Tehran is one of Iraq’s main trading partners and wields significant political influence in Baghdad, where its Iraqi allies dominate parliament and the current government.
Cursor previously wrote that Iran accuses “Zionists” of defamation following the threat of sanctions by three leading countries.
