Baghdad [Iraq]: Two drones targeting an Iraqi military airbase in the country’s western province of Anbar were shot down without casualties on Tuesday, the Iraqi military said. The drones attacked the Ayn al-Asad Air Base at dawn, but the air defence system shot them down outside the perimeter of the airbase, the Iraqi Joint Operation Command said in a statement. An Iraqi army source anonymously confirmed to Xinhua that two drones attacked the Ayn al-Asad Air Base, which houses some US military experts and agencies, and were shot down. The attack came a day after two drones were reportedly shot down at an Iraqi military base known as Camp Victory near rport. The attacks came on the second anniversary of a deadly attack by a U.S. drone on a convoy near Baghdad International Airport that killed Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, former deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces. On Jan. 5, 2020, just two days after the U.S. attack, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country. On Dec. 29, 2021, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi confirmed the end of the U.S.-led coalition forces’ combat mission in Iraq after the withdrawal of the forces from the country.
