US embassy in Baghdad attacked, fire breaks out

Flames and sirens pierced the stillness of dawn in Baghdad as facilities within the US embassy compound in the fortified Green Zone were set ablaze following a brazen drone assault early on Tuesday.

Two booby-trapped drones breached the perimeter, their explosions igniting a fire that glowed ominously beyond the compound walls, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry source cited by Xinhua.

Alarm systems wailed across the enclave as the attack unfolded, yet the embassy’s defence shield faltered, failing to intercept the incoming drones. Despite the intensity of the strike, there were no immediate reports of casualties, though the charred aftermath pointed to significant material damage.

The assault capped a night of sustained aggression, with the embassy enduring multiple waves of attacks from Monday evening into the early hours. Footage circulating from the scene captured the chilling precision of a drone detonating just feet from the compound — an unsettling sign of repeated penetrations through its C-RAM defences.

The Green Zone — long regarded as the nerve centre of Iraq’s governance and diplomacy, housing parliament, key ministries, and foreign missions — has once again found itself under fire, echoing years of rocket and mortar attacks that have scarred its heavily guarded confines.

Elsewhere, tension rippled through Iraq’s energy heartland. Two drones targeted the Majnoon oil field in the south late Monday. While one struck a telecommunications tower without causing damage, another aimed at offices of a US firm operating in the area, underscoring the widening arc of vulnerability.

Earlier in the day, tragedy struck in the western province of Anbar, where Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces reported the loss of six members in an Israeli strike near al-Qaim, close to the Syrian border. The group described the hit as targeting an “official security site”, with casualties falling as personnel stood watch over the nation’s sovereignty.

From the capital’s diplomatic quarter to its oil-rich south, Iraq finds itself caught in the crosscurrents of a deepening and dangerous escalation.

With IANS inputs