BAGHDAD, Sept 19 (NNN-NINA) – A roadside bomb exploded on Friday, near a convoy of trucks, carrying equipment belonging to the U.S.-led coalition forces in Salahudin province, in the north of Baghdad.
The explosion took place in the evening, when a convoy of vehicles of an Iraqi company, contracted with the international coalition in Iraq, was moving in al-Ishaqi area, some 100 km north of Baghdad, leaving a soldier wounded, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but unidentified militant groups frequently targeted civilian convoys contracted to the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, which usually travel from neighbouring Kuwait to the coalition’s bases in central and northern Iraq.
The attacks continued despite the recent announcement by U.S. President Trump that, U.S. troops “will be down to about 2,000 soldiers in a very short period of time.”
The militants’ attacks came, as the Iraqi-U.S. relations witnessed a tension since Jan 3, when a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former 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.– NNN-NINA
