Posted on 10/22/2014 1:02:46 PM PDT by AU72
RIA Novosti is confirming reports seen on Twitter in the past few hours that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has been hit by rockets/mortars by ISIS:
The report:
BAGHDAD, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – The US Embassy in Iraq located in central Baghdad has been shelled with rockets, Al-Mustakillah news agency reported Wednesday citing a security source.
“On Tuesday night the US Embassy was hit with three rockets. They were fired from a park area in the Dora district [in southern Baghdad],” the agency’s source said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Al-Sumaria TV channel reported a mortar shelling of the so-called “green zone” in the center of the capital, housing government buildings and foreign missions. Security forces surrounded the area to repel a potential attack.
In my article last week on possible implications of ISIS taking Baghdad, I raised the issue of the problem of evacuating the thousands of U.S. military, diplomatic personnel, and American citizens from Iraq if Baghdad fell.
Reports yesterday indicated that ISIS had been walking rounds into the International Zone, presumably to sight in their rounds.
And the Washington Post reported last Thursday that ISIS had been lobbing rounds into the International Zone since early this month:
On Oct. 1, four mortar shells struck inside the Green Zone, a fortified area in central Baghdad filled with foreign embassies and government buildings, according to a U.S. Embassy security official, who declined to be identified. The rounds fell a few hundred yards from the U.S. Embassy and followed another mortar attack a week earlier, he said.
Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command, confirmed that mortar fire had hit inside the Green Zone but said the shells landed on “empty space without any buildings.” He declined to give further details but said an investigation was underway to determine its source. He stressed that there have been no further incidents.
Consider today’s attack by ISIS a “further incident.”
Will the D.C. foreign policy establishment tell us, again, that ISIS attacking our embassy in Baghdad is a “sign of desperation” and an indication of their weakness?
What difference does it make?!
That embassy is a bunker. They’ll need a whole lot more than mortars to do any real damage.
I’m having a flashback to Saigon, 1968, Tet Offensive.
no big deal, they are just a JV team..
It’s ok...
Hillary told John effin Kerry just what to do.
...and....John has all that experience from Nam....
Was noted by numerous sources on Twitter last night.
Amazing to me that US media hasn’t reported it, given how things were handled in the Bush Years.
Yep, that too.
What difference does it make? Think Benghazi, on a MUCH larger scale.
Destabilize Lybia, Egypt and Syria. Brilliant!
Sadly, Baghdad is a long way from the sea. Anyone who collaborated with the US is as good as dead. There will be no airlift.
Oops Libya.
I was thinking about this last week—that ISIS would attack our Baghdad embassy. Bammy sucks at protecting embassies.
Must be within 8200m.
ISIS will go to wiipe out the airport first. With no airport to escape Baghdad, the USA embassy folks will be screwed!!! Americans...broom Obama and the entire Democrat Party on election day, November 4, 2014!!!!!!
The US taxpayers take a few more billion dollars and piss it into the wind. Thanks LIBs/DIMs/RINOs...thanks a lot.
Hillary missed that 3AM call.....
They got night vision gear, armored vehicles, weapons and money for letting our people go in Benghazi. Wonder what Obama will give them this time.
Unless they have a lot more sophisticated mortars now than during the Korean war, I would think the mortars are much closer to the green Zone.
Stats on our 4.2 Mortar which had a rifled barrel and a good range show:
Effective firing range 515 m (563.21 yds)
Maximum firing range 4,023 m (4,400 yds),
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