The Iraqi government said at least two of its radar systems were damaged by unidentified drones on Tuesday morning – one at the Al Taji military base north of Baghdad, and the other at the Imam Ali airbase in southern Iraq.

Four drone attacks on other locations were “successfully repelled and foiled” by the Iraqi military.

The timing of the attacks suggested they could be part of Iran’s symbolic “retaliation” for the weekend’s devastating U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran officially retaliated on Monday by launching six missiles at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, which had largely been abandoned by U.S. forces.

The carefully stage-managed action supposedly involved one missile for every bunker-buster bomb the U.S. dropped on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Fordow. Unlike the U.S. bombs, none of the Iranian missiles reached their targets.

No claim of responsibility was immediately made for Tuesday’s drone attacks, but they could have been launched by Shiite militias in Iraq that are loyal to the Iranian regime. Iran’s proxies in Iraq have a long history of launching rocket and drone attacks against bases housing American personnel. Most of those attacks were intercepted, but a few of them have caused significant damage and injuries.

According to Iraqi military spokesman Sabah al-Numan, the drone strikes on Tuesday morning against the Al Taji and Imam Ali bases caused “significant damages,” while the other four attacks were completely repelled. One of the drones was brought down about six miles west of Baghdad International Airport, where U.S. forces are deployed.

“All targeted sites are military locations fully affiliated with the Iraqi security forces, managed and operated by offices and personnel from our heroic security forces,” he said.

“The criminal and treacherous acts will not go unpunished,” he promised, denouncing the drone strikes as “cowardly and treacherous.”

Kurdish media reported “three powerful explosions” at Al Taji. Video of the attack showed flames gushing from a radar facility on the base:

The large base at Al Taji once housed U.S. forces, but they were withdrawn in the summer of 2020. Iranian militias attacked the base several times in 2019 and 2020 while American troops were stationed there.

The Jerusalem Post speculated on Tuesday that Iran’s militia proxies in Iraq might have been making a symbolic gesture by striking radar facilities, because they believe the Iraqi government provided radar data to U.S. and Israeli planes for their strikes on Iran. The attacks could also have been a more serious effort to weaken Iraqi radar coverage for a future Iranian operation.