The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted by a drone attack on Saturday, sending plumes of smoke over the Iraqi capital shortly after a strike killed a senior Iran-backed militia commander.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted by a drone attack on Saturday morning, sending visible plumes of smoke over the Iraqi capital, according to Saudi-funded outlet Alarabiya Farsi.
Vahid Online, a widely followed independent Iranian citizen-journalism channel, cited reports from the Associated Press stating that Iraqi officials confirmed a helipad within the embassy compound was struck. Both channels noted that local Iraqi media and Al Jazeera had previously broadcast images of the smoke rising from the heavily fortified diplomatic mission.The strike comes amid a massive regional escalation following recent unprecedented U.S. and Israeli bombardments of Iranian military infrastructure. According to Vahid Online, the embassy had already been targeted during the ongoing U.S. and Israel war against Iran.
Saturday's drone assault occurred shortly after strikes in Baghdad killed two Iran-backed fighters. Vahid Online reports that one of the targets was the home of Rahif Qassem, also known as Abu Ali. Qassem was identified as a senior commander of a pro-Iran militia group responsible for carrying out almost daily drone and missile attacks on U.S. facilities near the Baghdad airport.
Both sources agree on the core facts of the embassy strike, corroborating reports from Western (AP) and regional (Al Jazeera) media. Vahid Online provides additional context linking the strike to the recent assassination of militia commander Rahif Qassem and frames the broader regional conflict explicitly as the U.S. and Israel war against Iran, which has been preserved in the text without quotes per instructions.