A drone strike on the headquarters of Iraq's National Intelligence Service in central Baghdad killed a police officer, an Iraqi government security spokesperson said. The attack occurred amid a wider series of drone and rocket operations claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against American military sites.
General Saad Maan, head of the Iraqi government's security media unit, said a drone targeted the intelligence headquarters in the Mansour district at about 10 a.m. local time. His statement blamed what it called outlaw groups but did not publicly identify a specific organization as responsible.
A security official speaking anonymously said the drone struck a communications building housing an Iraqi agency that works with US security advisers. A second drone that was filming the operation crashed into a nearby private sports club frequented by Iraqi elites and foreign diplomats, according to the same account.
Hours earlier, at least three drones targeted a US diplomatic and logistics hub containing military personnel at Baghdad International Airport, two security officials said. One reported that a fire followed the third attack. The supplied evidence did not provide confirmed casualties or a damage assessment from those strikes.
Separately, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of Iran-backed Shiite factions, claimed it had carried out 27 operations against US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region during the preceding 24 hours. The group said it used dozens of drones and rockets but did not name the targeted installations or report damage and casualties. Its statement therefore documented a claim, not independently verified results.
The violence unfolded during the regional conflict triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran beginning February 28. Iran-aligned groups had claimed near-daily attacks on American interests, mostly in Iraq but also elsewhere. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it had claimed nearly 300 attacks on US facilities in Iraq since that date.
Another strike late Friday killed a fighter from the former Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition at a northern Iraqi military airfield. The group blamed the United States and Israel. On Thursday, the Pentagon acknowledged that US combat helicopters had struck pro-Iran groups in Iraq during the conflict.
Those overlapping operations put Iraqi territory and institutions under pressure from multiple directions. The fatal strike in Mansour hit a national intelligence facility inside the capital, while attacks around the airport threatened a hub used by American personnel. At the same time, broad claims by armed factions made it difficult to match every reported incident to a responsible party.
The confirmed death of the police officer and the government's account of the headquarters strike stood apart from the Islamic Resistance's unverified operational total. Keeping those claims distinct is essential while Iraqi authorities assess the attacks and the regional confrontation continues.
