One British and two American personnel were killed and about a dozen people were wounded when 18 Katyusha rockets hit Iraq's Camp Taji base north of Baghdad on Wednesday, US officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The officials, who cautioned the death toll may rise given the severity of some of the injuries, said it was too soon to assign blame. Any indication that Iran-backed militias were responsible could spark a new round of confrontation between the United States and Iran.
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and they "underscored that those responsible for the attacks must be held accountable," the State Department said.
One of the officials said five service members were seriously wounded and evacuated from the base and seven others were still being evaluated. Buildings on the base were in flames.
Army Col. Myles Caggins, a US military spokesman in Iraq, confirmed that three personnel from the US-led coalition were killed and about 12 were wounded, but did not provide details about what country they were from. The US military said that the names of those killed would be released after family notifications.
Caggins, in a statement, said that about 18 107mm Katyusha rockets struck the base and that Iraqi Security Forces found a rocket-rigged truck a few miles from Camp Taji. Such Russian rockets have been used in the past by Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.
Another US official said that as many as 30 rockets were fired from the truck launcher, but 18 hit the base.
Officials did not say what group they believe launched the rocket attack, but Kataib Hezbollah or another Iranian-backed Shiite militia group is likely.
Camp Taji, located just north of Baghdad, has been used as a training base for a number of years. There are as many as 6,000 US troops in Iraq, training and advising Iraqi forces and conducting counterterror missions.
Kataib Hezbollah was responsible for a late December rocket attack on a military base in Kirkuk that killed a US contractor, prompting American military strikes in response.
That, in turn, led to protests at the US embassy in Baghdad. They were followed January 3 by a US airstrike that killed Iran's most powerful military officer, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq, of which Kataib Hezbollah is a member.
Kataib Hezbollah been designated a "foreign terrorist organization" by the US State Department since 2009.
Later on Wednesday, Syrian opposition activists and a war monitor reported an airstrike that targeted Iranian militia positions along the Iraq-Syria border.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 10 airstrikes carried out by three unidentified aircraft that targeted pro-Iran militias in the Al Bukamal region in eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq. The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syria war through a network of activists on the ground, said at least 10 explosions were heard and that at least 26 militia fighters with the Iraqi paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi were killed.
US officials said the strike was not related to the Taji base strike at all. But it was not immediately clear who conducted the attack.
The Washington Post cited an anonymous US official as saying that while the strike did happen, US fighter jets were not part of the attack.
Syrian activist Omar Abu Layla said the unidentified airstrike targeted Iranian militia positions in the Al Bukamal region.
Syrian state-run media also reported an aerial attack in the Al Bukamal region near the Iraqi border that caused material damage.
Israel has repeatedly warned Iran that it would not let it use Syria's civil war as cover for expanding its regional influence. According to reports, Israel's "campaign between wars," in which it has attacked bases and forces affiliated with Iran, has included attacks in the Al Bukamal region.
Israel is determined not to allow Iran to build drone bases, missile factories and proxy terrorist networks with which to threaten its citizens, and the Israeli Air Force operates around the clock to monitor and disrupt emerging threats.
