Roadside bomb hits U.S.-led coalition trucks near Iraq's Baghdad

Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-11 18:59:35|Editor: huaxia

BAGHDAD, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb struck a convoy of trucks belonging to the U.S.-led coalition forces near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Iraqi military said Tuesday.

The blast took place in Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad, and resulted in the burning of a container carried on one of the convoy's trucks, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a brief statement.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but unidentified militant groups have frequently targeted U.S.-led coalition convoys, which usually travel from neighboring Kuwait to the coalition bases in central and northern Iraq.

The attacks came as the Iraqi-U.S. relations have 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.

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.

The troops are part of the U.S.-led coalition that has also been conducting air raids against IS targets in both Iraq and Syria. Enditem

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