BAGHDAD, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Three Katyusha rockets landed on the perimeter of Iraq's Baghdad International Airport without causing casualties, the Iraqi military said Tuesday.
The attack took place in the early hours after midnight when the rockets launched from al-Makasib neighborhood in western Baghdad on the airport, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
Security forces immediately launched a search campaign in the area and found wooden structures used as bases to fix the rocket launchers with a number of unfired rockets, the JOC statement added.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, as the military bases housing U.S. troops across Iraq and the U.S. embassy have been frequently targeted by mortar and rocket attacks.
The attack came five days after U.S and Iraqi officials held a strategic video dialogue, where the United States pledged to continue cutting down on its forces in Iraq and confirmed that it does not seek permanent military presence in the country.
The Iraqi-U.S. relations have witnessed a tension since Jan. 3 when a U.S. drone struck a convoy at Baghdad's 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.
The U.S. airstrike prompted the Iraqi parliament on Jan. 5 to pass a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.
More than 5,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the Iraqi forces in the battles against the Islamic State militants, mainly providing training and advising to the Iraqi forces. Enditem
