Iraq

A barrage of rockets hit the Iraqi military airbase of Balad hosting US contractors in the north of Baghdad on Saturday, injuring one Iraqi contractor, Iraqi security officials said.

Iran PressMiddle East: No group immediately claimed the attack. It was the second salvo of rockets to hit a base hosting US forces or contractors in less than a week.

Muslim Ulema Union in Iraq's Diyala province issued a statement Friday protesting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decision to increase the number of its troops in Iraq, according to the Al-Maalouma website.

The former US President Donald Trump had pardoned four members of the notorious American company Blackwater, who were sentenced to long prison terms for killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

The four were part of an armored convoy that fired sporadically and indiscriminately at a group of innocent people in the Iraqi capital, known as the Nisour Square Massacre in Baghdad.

The massacre took place in 2007 when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. Slatten, whom prosecutors said started the shooting, was sentenced to life in prison.

211