A huge blast at a military base in Iraq early on Saturday killed a member of an Iraqi security force that includes Iran-backed groups. The force commander said it was an attack while the army said it was investigating and there were no warplanes in the sky at the time.
\nTwo security sources had said earlier that an airstrike caused the blast, which killed a member of Iraq\u2019s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and wounded eight others at Kalso military base about 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad.
\nIn a statement, the PMF said its chief of staff Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi had visited the location and reviewed information from investigators.
\nThe Iraqi military said a technical committee was looking into the cause of an explosion and fire at the base, which it said happened at 1 a.m. on Saturday (2200 GMT Friday).
\n\u201cThe air defence command report confirmed, through technical efforts and radar detection, that there was no drone or fighter jet in the air space of Babil before and during the explosion,\u201d the military said in a statement.
\nA video broadcast by Al Ahad TV, which is owned by a PMF faction, showed debris and a crater left by the explosion. The location was confirmed by Reuters.
\nREGION ON EDGE
\nThe incident in Iraq\u2019s Babil province occurred with frictions even higher than usual across the Middle East, following what sources said was an Israeli attack in the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday. Tehran has played it down and indicated it had no plans for retaliation.
\nThat incident came six days after Iran fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel in response to a presumed Israeli airstrike that destroyed part of Iran\u2019s embassy in Damascus, killing seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers on April 1.
\nThe PMF includes Iran-backed groups which, operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, have attacked U.S. troops in the region and targeted Israel since the eruption of the Gaza war, declaring support for the Palestinians.
\nTheir attacks on U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq stopped in early February after a drone strike killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, prompting heavy U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
\nBut they claimed responsibility for an attack on the Israeli city of Eilat on April 1.
\nThe U.S. military\u2019s Central Command, in a post on X early on Saturday, denied what it said were reports that the United States had carried out airstrikes in Iraq.
\nThe PMF started out as a grouping of armed factions, many close to Iran, that was later recognized as a formal security force by Iraqi authorities.
\n(Reuters)Explosion. military base blast, Iraq, investigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A huge blast at a military base in Iraq killed a member of an Iraqi security force that includes Iran-backed groups. The Iraqi military is investigating the cause of the explosion, which killed one person and wounded eight others. The incident occurred in Babil province amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, including recent attacks between Iran and Israel. The PMF, which includes Iran-backed groups, has previously targeted U.S. troops and Israel, claiming support for Palestinians. The U.S. military denied reports of carrying out airstrikes in Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,652,383,1234,5702,7079,1232,2172,445,917,4092,2515,118,145,4171,5373,1419,2218,146,3966,299,4695,7028,3669,69,3504,7263,7264,2470,5330,462,4620,5515,6349,6308,827,6928,335,1827,729,1358,2471,5979,468,1857,544,2389,293,18],"class_list":["post-9002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-air","tag-army","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-committee","tag-drone-strike","tag-drones","tag-embassy","tag-eruption","tag-explosion","tag-factions","tag-february","tag-fire","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-war","tag-investigating","tag-investigation","tag-investigators","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-israel","tag-israeli-airstrike","tag-israeli-attack","tag-jordan","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-military-base","tag-military-base-blast","tag-missiles","tag-officers","tag-palestinians","tag-report","tag-responsibility","tag-retaliation","tag-revolutionary-guards","tag-security","tag-six","tag-space","tag-statement","tag-strike","tag-support","tag-syria","tag-tehran","tag-tensions","tag-u-s-troops","tag-united-states","tag-video","tag-war","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n