translated from Spanish: Projectile hit near Iraq airbase where U.S. soldiers are deployed.

At least one projectile has hit late this Thursday in the vicinity of Balad Air Base in northern Iraq and where U.S. troops are deployed. Security forces cited by the Iraqi news agency NINA have indicated that the projectile has fallen in the town of Fadlán near the base, with no information on casualties at the moment. At the moment it is unknown who has been behind the projectile’s launch at the base, located about 80 kilometres north of the country’s capital, Baghdad.The incident takes place amid rising tensions in the region following death last week of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Revolutionary Guard Force, in a U.S. bombing raid on Baghdad airport.Soleimani was killed alongside ‘number two’ of the Popular Mobilization Forces (FMP), Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, and several militiamen Iraqis, after which Tehran promised to take revenge for the attack. In response, Iran on Wednesday with missiles attacked two military bases located in Iraq where U.S. soldiers are deployed, in which Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described Washington as “a slap” that the attacks have been paid off without casualties, although one head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed that at least 80 U.S. service members have died there. For its part, the Iraqi authorities strongly criticized the bombing of Soleimani and Parliament on Sunday passed a motion calling for the expulsion of US troops from the country and forcing the government to commit to public any agreement that future reach for the presence of foreign military advisers and trainers. During Monday, the Iraqi Executive limited the activities of the international coalition and reduced them to training and advisory work, banning their movements by land and air. On Thursday, the anti-Islamic State coalition announced a “pause” of its military operations in Iraq, in the face of rising tensions in the country and region.

Original source in Spanish