Two rockets hit Baghdad Green Zone: Arab media

BAGHDAD: Two rockets hit Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, but caused no casualties, said Arab media.

“Two Katyusha rockets fall inside the Green Zone without causing casualties.”

Iraq’s military said two Katyusha rockets fell inside the Green Zone, the section that contains the U.S. Embassy, other embassies of Western nations and foreign businesses.

The rockets were fired several hours after President Donald Trump declared that Iran appeared to be standing down from the military conflict with the US, remarks that sent stock indexes surging high.

Tensions have been escalating between US and Iran after Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force was killed on Friday in a US airstrike on his convoy at Baghdad airport.

Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq in the early hours of Wednesday in retaliation for the US drone strike on an Iranian commander whose killing has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East.

Iran has claimed that at least 80 people were killed in ballistic missiles targeting US military bases in Iraq. Tehran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from Iranian territory against at least two Iraqi military bases hosting US-led coalition personnel at about 1.30 a.m. local time, the US military said.