Days after the US said it had officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq’s ability to defend itself, US troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday.
The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving US troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that US troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the US drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country.
Sunday’s hour-long assault was the second in as many weeks on the facility, the headquarters for the Iraqi Army’s 11th Division, pointing to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.
Two of the six attackers even managed to fight their way inside the compound and were only killed after running out of ammunition and detonating explosives belts they were wearing.
The US troops who joined the fight and provided cover fire for Iraqi soldiers pursuing the attackers were based at the compound to train Iraqi forces, US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Bloom said. Iraqi forces also requested help from US helicopters, drones and explosives experts, he said. No US troops were hurt, Bloom said.
Under an agreement between the two countries, Iraq can still call on US forces to assist in combat and US troops can defend themselves if attacked.
In Sunday’s assault, six militants wearing explosives vests and matching track suits and armed with machine guns and hand grenades pulled up at a checkpoint with an explosives-laden car, a senior Iraqi military intelligence official who was inside the building said at the time.
The six assailants left the car and started shooting, killing a soldier at the checkpoint, he said. Guards at an observation tower returned fire, killing four militants, while two entered a building in the military compound.
Iraqi soldiers shot and killed a seventh attacker who was driving the vehicle, causing the car bomb to explode, the official said. The blast left behind a gaping crater in the ground.
The fighting came to an end after the two assailants who breached the compound ran out of bullets and detonated their explosives vests, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Two weeks earlier, an al-Qaeda-linked suicide bomber waded into a crowd of hundreds of army recruits outside the building and detonated a blast that killed 61 people. That was the deadliest act of violence in Baghdad in months.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack.
Baghdad has been on high alert since US President Barack Obama declared the official end to US combat operations on Wednesday last week, setting up more checkpoints, intensifying searches of people and vehicles and handing out more guns and bullets to troops guarding the capital.
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