US Drone Strike on Baghdad Kills Iraqi Intelligence Officer
A drone attack on Saturday night in Baghdad, specifically targeting the headquarters of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) in the Mansour district, killed one officer and injured several others. The New Arab and other reports confirm the strike, though the perpetrator's identity is often obscured by official statements. Mainstream media, including outlets like The New Arab, frame this
incident as simply a 'drone attack' or a 'strike,' frequently implying an unknown origin or attributing it to 'unidentified aircraft.' This framing conveniently omits the US military's consistent pattern of drone operations in Iraq, often conducted without explicit Iraqi government consent. Iraqi resistance groups and independent observers routinely identify these as US actions, part of an ongoing
campaign to destabilize the region and maintain a military footprint, despite Baghdad's demands for troop withdrawal. The US has a long history of such operations, including the January 2020 assassination of General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a clear breach of international law and Iraqi sovereignty. This latest strike comes during a
period of heightened tensions fueled by the US's continued refusal to withdraw its 2,500 troops from Iraq, a presence deemed illegal by the Iraqi parliament in January 2020. The US maintains 75 military facilities across Syria and Iraq, totaling an estimated $83 billion in annual operational costs across the broader Middle East. This latest killing of an Iraqi intelligence officer illustrates the