Iran-aligned militias struck the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday with a missile that hit a helipad inside the heavily fortified facility, triggering an urgent evacuation order that told all Americans remaining in Iraq to leave the country immediately, as the three-week-old US-Israeli war on Iran opened a new and alarming front on Iraqi soil.
An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera the attack destroyed part of the embassy’s air defence system, while two security officials told the Associated Press that the projectile landed within the embassy boundaries in the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district in central Baghdad that houses Iraqi government institutions and several foreign diplomatic missions. Eyewitness video showed dark smoke rising from a fire at the embassy building shortly after the strike.
Hours after the attack, the embassy issued an urgent security alert telling US citizens to leave Iraq now and by land, noting that commercial flights were not operating from the country. It warned Americans not to attempt to reach either the Baghdad embassy or the US Consulate General in Erbil due to ongoing risks from rockets, drones, and mortars in Iraqi airspace.
Tit-for-Tat Cycle Intensifies
The embassy strike occurred shortly after two separate attacks in Baghdad targeting the Iran-backed armed group Kataeb Hezbollah killed three of its members, including a commander. The first strike hit a house in the Arasat neighbourhood and the second targeted a vehicle in the Nahrawan district. Kataeb Hezbollah subsequently held a funeral procession in Baghdad for the three fighters.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the missile strike on the embassy. Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq had previously pledged to attack US facilities and had escalated their threats in the days before Saturday’s strike, including a statement offering $100,000 to anyone who provided information leading to any US diplomatic personnel inside Iraq.
Saturday marked the second time the US Embassy had been struck since the start of the war. It is one of the largest US diplomatic facilities anywhere in the world and has a long history of being targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias.
Wider War Rages Across the Region
Saturday’s attack came at the end of a week of major escalation across the conflict. Iran’s joint military command reiterated its threat to attack US-linked oil, economic and energy infrastructure in the region if Iran’s own oil infrastructure is targeted, while its semiofficial Fars news agency disputed US claims that Kharg Island strikes had hit anything significant, saying they targeted only peripheral military facilities.
Loading operations at the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates were suspended on Saturday after debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility and started a fire.
The State Department announced a $10 million reward for information on Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and key leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its component branches. Trump told NBC News he was unsure whether Khamenei was still alive, adding that Iran was seeking negotiations but that he was not yet ready to accept a deal.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that US forces had now struck more than 15,000 enemy targets since the war began, at a rate exceeding 1,000 strikes per day. Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani condemned the embassy strike as a terrorist act and ordered security forces to pursue those responsible, insisting the groups carrying out such attacks did not represent the will of the Iraqi people.
