5 shells hit Iraq military base housing US forces
A total of five shells hit a military base housing US forces in Iraq's Nineveh province, the Iraqi army said. The attack took place on Friday night when the shells landed on the al-Qayyara airbase, south of the provincial capital city of Mosul, Xinhua news agency quoted the media office affiliated with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, as saying. There were no reports of any casualties or damage.
A security source in Mosul told Xinhua that Katyusha rockets landed at the perimeter of the al-Qayyara airbase without causing casualties.
The attack came a week after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Baghdad upon the request of the prominent Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, in which he called for a scheduled withdrawal of US troops from Iraq through peaceful means.
On January 5, Iraq's parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.
The development came two days after a US drone attack killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces, in Baghdad.
Over 5,000 US troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the country's forces in the battles against Islamic State militants.
