Several rockets fired from inside Baghdad on Saturday struck the capital’s fortified Green Zone area that houses most of Iraq’s key institutions and main embassies, officials said.
“Several Katyusha rockets fired from the Baladiyat and Palestine Street areas landed in the Green Zone,” the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
Those two neighbourhoods are in northern Baghdad, on the other side of the Tigris River that runs through the city.
The incident came hours after seven people were killed when protesters, most of them supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, tried to force their way through a security cordon to reach the Green Zone.
An MP who lives in the Green Zone spoke of at least six rockets hitting the area, and a diplomat also contacted by AFP said he heard four.
Police and interior ministry officials confirmed to AFP that several rockets were fired at the vast protected area, but could not specify what the presumed target was, nor whether there were any victims.
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