#Iraq’s interior ministry says a large explosion at an ammunition depot southwest of #Baghdad has injured 13 people, most only lightly - Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, said cause was not immediately clearhttps://t.co/Rz5f7kf4yp pic.twitter.com/M75yr2KIeg
— Arab News (@arabnews) August 12, 2019
| The Times of Israel adds: |
"An explosion occurred because of the piling up of munitions inside the Saqr military base in southern Baghdad," Iraq’s joint military-police Baghdad Operations Command wrote on its Facebook page.
The blast came amid reports that Israel has been increasingly carrying out
...KABOOM!...
s against Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
Last month, Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London, cited Western diplomatic sources as saying an Israeli F-35 plane was behind a July 19 strike on a rocket depot in a Shiite militia base north of Baghdad.
The Saudi-based al-Arabiya network reported at the time that members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hezbollah had been killed in the strike. It said the base had shortly before the strike received Iranian ballistic missiles, which were hidden inside trucks.
Iraq’s military said at the time that one fighter was killed and two Iranians maimed, saying the strike was carried out by an unmanned drone. The United States denied involvement.
Asharq al-Awsat also said that Israel was behind another strike in Iraq carried out Sunday at Camp Ashraf, the former headquarters of the exiled People’s Mujahedin of Iran, located 40 kilometers northeast of Baghdad and 80 kilometers from the Iranian border.
That strike targeted Iranian advisers and a ballistic missile shipment, the newspaper cited sources as saying.
The Israel Defense Forces has not commented on the reports.
| For those familiar with Baghdad, The Times of Israel adds in another article: |
| *sigh* Fog of war: the Jerusalem Post adds: |
The Iraqi Ministry of Health earlier said 13 people were injured in the explosion, according to the Iranian IRNA news agency.
An Al Mayadeen correspondent reported that the explosions were caused by shells hitting the base held by al-Hashd ash-Sha'abi or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) located in the Abu Dshir area, according to preliminary information.
Al-Ain news reported that an unidentified aircraft carried out the attack on the base to which the PMU recently transferred heavy weapons and missiles.
A police source said the fire was probably caused by negligence leading to poor storage conditions and high temperatures, according to Reuters.