Iraqi dies of wounds sustained in Erbil rocket attack: Health ministry

An Iraqi civilian wounded in a rocket attack targeting the Erbil airport in northern Iraq last week has died, authorities in the Kurdistan region said Monday, raising the toll to two dead.

On February 15, more than a dozen rockets were aimed at a military complex inside the Erbil airport that hosts foreign troops deployed as part of a US-led coalition helping Iraq fight jihadists since 2014.

But many of the rockets struck all over the city’s northwest, including in residential districts, where they wounded five civilians.

One of them died on Monday, said the spokesman for the autonomous Kurdistan region’s health ministry, Bajjar Mousa.

“One of the wounded getting treatment at the hospital has died. We could not save his life despite several days of trying,” Mousa told AFP.

The second death was a foreign civilian contractor working with the US-led coalition, the alliance’s spokesman said.

The spokesman could not confirm the fatality’s nationality but told AFP he was not American. Nine others working at the military base were wounded.

The attack was the first in nearly two months targeting Western military or diplomatic installations in Iraq, after dozens of similar incidents last year that were blamed on pro-Iranian Shia militias.

A shadowy group calling itself Awliyaa al-Dam (Guardians of Blood) claimed the attack and in a follow-up statement vowed to keep targeting US forces in Iraq.

The violence was condemned by the United Nations, which called it “reckless,” as well as a host of countries.