U.S. Troops ‘Mistakenly’ Open Fire on Iraqi Kurdish Neighborhood

U.S. military forces stationed at Al-Harir Air Base in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region “mistakenly” fired on at least 11 civilian homes and one civilian car on Monday night in the nearby town of Shaqlawa, the Kurdish news website Rudaw reported.

“At 10:00 PM [on May 9], the [U.S.] force was conducting practice specialized for shooting down drones, and that is why the bullets landed in the center of Basrma district and the security forces arrived at the scene of the incident,” Jangawar Azhgayi, the director of Shaqlawa’s Basrma district, told Rudaw.

Combat-related civilian harm decreased across major conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa last year, according to the annual report of UK-based monitoring body Airwars, published on Tuesday.

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— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) May 10, 2022

Projectiles reportedly fired by the U.S. military penetrated at least 11 houses and one motor vehicle in the middle of Basrma, Azhgayi revealed, while adding that no casualties were reported in connection with the incident.

“The bullets hit my house, my brother’s house, windows, doors, everything. We were all at home but thanks to God, we’re safe,”  Rudaw quoted an unnamed eyewitness as saying.

The U.S. Army and Air Force jointly manage Al-Harir Air Base as part of “Operation Inherent Resolve,” which is the U.S. military’s effort to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group “with and through regional partners” in Iraq and Syria, according to the U.S Department of Defense. The airfield is located 13 miles northeast of Shaqlawa, which itself lies 20 miles northeast of Erbil city. The city of Erbil is the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

Rudaw’s English news service reported on May 10 that it had “repeatedly reached out to Operation Inherent Resolve’s press desk and the US Department of Defense for comment on the [May 9 Shaqlawa] incident, but as yet has had no response.”

“Despite Rudaw English submitting a question, [U.S.] Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby did not address the event during his Tuesday [May 10] briefing at the Pentagon,” the news outlet noted.

Rudaw on May 10 shared two photos via its Twitter account appearing to show Shaqlawa civilian structures shot through with bullet holes on May 9.

Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency reported on the incident on May 10, writing, “Arab media reported on Monday night [May 9] that heavy gunfire was heard at al-Harir Airport in Erbil province in northern Iraq.”

The U.S. military plans to maintain a presence of its troops in Iraq and Syria despite a general winding down of its official operations in the neighboring countries to counter ISIS (from about 2014 to 2021) because the international jihadist group “continued to constitute a security threat” in the nations “despite no longer holding territory in Iraq and Syria,” Rudaw paraphrased the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Dana Stroul, as saying on April 6.