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A rocket struck the site of the residential and operations headquarters of several major oil companies on the morning of June 19th, the Iraqi military announced.
The rocket hit the Burjesia residential and operations headquarters west of Basra, Iraqi police said. The site is home to a number of international oil giants, including US firm ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and Italian Eni SpA.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Basra, said a local security official confirmed Exxon evacuated 21 foreign staff in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
“The oil ministry is saying that oil production in the area has not been affected by this attack,” Stratford said, adding the security official described the rocket used as a Katyusha.
“[But] we are seeing what can only be described as an increase in the frequency of such incidents, over the last month and a half there has been a number involving rockets fired at what has been interpreted to be foreign interests here,” he added.
According to security official Mahdi Raykan, the Katyusha rocket landed at dawn in the Zubair and Rumeila oil fields camp, operated by the Iraqi Drilling company. It was fired from a distance of up to 5 km.
On the two previous days, similar attacks took place.
On June 17th, three rockets landed on a military base hosting U.S. forces north of Baghdad.
Reuters cited an anonymous source that claimed two mortar shells had landed in the Iraqi section of the Taji base and one just outside of it.
No casualties were caused by the shelling, the source said. He said sirens wailed in the US section of the base during the incident.
On June 18th, a rocket landed an Iraqi military base hosting US forces in the northern city of Mosul.
Mosul’s military commander said the rocket landed in an open space causing no casualties or damage. He said it was fired from west Mosul, across the Tigris river, and was a “locally made” rocket, without elaborating.
This comes amid US accusations against Iran for the alleged attacks on the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman and the older alleged sabotage on four tankers earlier.
On May 19th, a rocket also landed approximately 1 mile away from the emptied US Embassy in Baghdad, which was also attributed to militants backed by Iran.
Naturally, MSM wasted no time in claiming that these incidents were also a part of the US-Iran rise in tensions and that despite both countries claiming that they do not wish conflict, events such as this take place.
Notwithstanding, ISIS is farm from being defeated in Iraq, despite it being announced defeated in December 2017. Attacks by ISIS militants continue on a daily basis. he fight against ISIS is on-going, a simple glance on reports from Iraq is proof enough.
- The Iraqi military continue destroying ISIS infrastructure, such as tunnels, most recently in Anbar.
- A terrorist attack in the south of Baghdad was just foiled.
- The US continues its airstrike activities, killing ISIS fighters, despite the terrorist group being allegedly defeated.
- Iraqi security forces, on June 16th, arrested an ISIS suicide bomber with an explosive belt in Diyala.
- In Mosul, specifically, on June 15th, Iraqi intelligence forces seized 6 explosive belts, prepared for attacks.
A simple glance at any Iraqi outlet will show that ISIS is alive, despite being announced as defeated.
Regardless, the defeated ISIS couldn’t have possibly carried out any of these recent attacks on US forces and the oil infrastructure, since they’re defeated – it could have only allegedly been Iran, or Iran-backed militants.
But quite conveniently these attacks managed to injure nobody and caused minimal damages.
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