Two rockets have fallen in the vicinity of a site belonging to a Chinese oil company in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Iraq’s military communications centre said on Saturday.
“Two Katyusha rockets landed near the Chinese company’s site in the Nahrawan region of southeast Baghdad on Saturday, there were no casualties”, the centre said in a statement.
The AP cited security officials as saying that the attack caused minor damage. One of the officials said that militia groups launched the rockets as retaliation for a botched business proposition.
China's ZhenHua, a branch of the weapons firm Norico, has been operating in the nearby East Baghdad area since May 2018 under a contract with the oil ministry but the security officials refused to elaborate whether this was the company that had come under attack.
On 6 April, three rockets struck in the vicinity of a site belonging to the US oil service company Halliburton in the southern Iraqi province of Basra. No injuries or material damage were reported in the incident.
The US has ramped up its military presence in Iraq, deploying Patriot missile systems at the al-Asad Air Base in al Anbar governorate, and Erbil Airbase in Iraqi Kurdistan after they were struck by over a dozen Iranian missiles on 8 January. Iran described the strikes as retaliation to the 3 January drone strike assassination of Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport.
