Baghdad
BaghdadISTOCK

A drone was intercepted and shot down near the US embassy in Baghdad on Monday night, two Iraqi security sources told the Reuters news agency.

The sources said the drone failed to reach the embassy compound. There were no injuries.

Rocket attacks have regularly targeted Iraqi bases as well as the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, where the US embassy is located, since the US elimination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani last January.

Last week, the US launched air strikes against three targets it said were used by pro-Iran groups in eastern Syria and western Iraq.

A day later, pro-Iranian militias fired several shells at a US base in eastern Syria's Al-Omar oil field, causing damage but no casualties.

Last week’s air strikes were not the first time that the Biden administration has retaliated for attacks on US targets in Iraq.

In February, the US bombed a border depot in Syria which the Pentagon said was used by Iran-backed Iraqi armed militia that have been tied to the rocket attacks. The strikes followed a rocket attack targeting an airbase in Iraq's Kurdistan region, which killed a foreign civilian contractor and wounded five others, among them a US soldier.

US President Joe Biden described the February attack as a "warning" to Iran.