Four killed in Baghdad as US, militias clash
Attack on a home in Baghdad’s Jadriyah killed four, with witnesses seeing smoke and fire near the US embassy nearby
The night sky over Baghdad turned orange before dawn, lit by fire and the desperate chatter of air defence systems. Multiple explosions rocked Iraq’s capital, shattering windows and sleep in equal measure, as at least four people were killed in an air raid on a building used by an Iran-backed group, while drone strikes targeted the heavily fortified US Embassy compound. For residents of this ancient city, the sounds were horrifyingly familiar—a return to a nightmare they had hoped was fading into history.
In the Jadriyah district, a building used by the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the state-sanctioned umbrella group of mostly Shia paramilitaries, took a direct hit. Four people inside were killed. But in a city where violence rarely confines itself to military targets, the nearby residents felt the blast wave rattle their homes. Families huddled in interior rooms, parents whispering to frightened children that everything would be okay, even as sirens wailed outside.
The main spectacle of terror, however, unfolded near the US Embassy in the Green Zone. Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed fire and smoke billowing from the vicinity of the compound as the embassy’s C-RAM air defence system—a automated cannon designed to shred incoming threats—opened fire into the night sky. Witnesses reported at least two drones shot down, their wreckage tumbling uselessly to earth. But a third found its mark, striking inside the compound itself and sending a plume of smoke rising over Baghdad’s most fortified enclave.
For the Iraqi security forces tasked with protecting the area, the night was chaos. Following the strike, armoured vehicles rumbled through the streets, blocking all roads to the Green Zone with barricades. Soldiers, many of them young conscripts far from home, peered into the darkness with exhausted eyes, wondering if more drones were coming.
The target of the deadly drone strike was not a military barracks but a hotel—the Al Rasheed, also known as the Royal Tulip. This wasn’t just any building. Located near the US Embassy, it houses several foreign diplomatic missions, including the European Union and Saudi Arabia, along with employees of international oil companies. When the explosives-laden drone hit the rooftop, it sent a clear message: nowhere in Baghdad is safe. For the foreign workers inside, many of whom came to Iraq for economic opportunity, the attack was a terrifying reminder that their presence makes them pawns in a larger game.
This violence, as Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdel Wahed reported from the scene, appeared to be retaliation. Earlier in the day, a suspected US attack on a PMF checkpoint in the town of Al-Qaim, near the Syrian border, had killed at least eight Iraqi troops. The cycle of attack and counter-attack, so familiar to this region, was spinning once again.
For ordinary Baghdadis, the renewed violence brings a particular despair. The city has worked so hard to rebuild, to attract investment, to convince its people that the days of car bombs and night raids are over. Markets had reopened. Cafes stayed open late. Children played in parks. Now, the Green Zone—that symbol of foreign power and Iraqi division—is once again a flashpoint, and everyone nearby is collateral damage.
As dawn broke over the Tigris River, cleaning crews began sweeping broken glass from the streets near the embassy. Shopkeepers surveyed damage to their storefronts. Mothers walked children to school, gripping their hands a little tighter. The US Embassy had no immediate comment, but its silence spoke volumes. In Baghdad, the war that won’t end had simply found a new morning to ruin.