Iraq has been unwillingly drawn into the Middle East conflict with strikes targeting Iran-backed groups, which in turn have claimed near-daily attacks on US interests, mostly in Iraq but also across the wider region.

At around 10:00 am local time (0700 GMT) the Iraqi National Intelligence Service was attacked in a drone strike, said Saad Maan, head of the Iraqi government’s security media unit.

“An officer was martyred,” the Iraqi intelligence agency said in a statement, condemning the strike as a “terrorist attack carried out by rogue elements”.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

An officer was also wounded in the attack, according to a security official and an emergency services source.

The attack occurred in the affluent Mansour neighbourhood, during celebrations marking Eid al-Fitr.

Earlier, an Iraqi security official told AFP the attack targeted a “telecommunications tower” used by the National Intelligence Services, which cooperates with US advisors deployed in Iraq as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.

He later said the targeted building houses a unit responsible for monitoring and tracking the recent strikes and rocket fire across the city.

Another drone, filming the operation, crashed into a private members sports club popular with the Iraqi elite and foreign diplomats, according to the same source.

Drone attacks

Since the start of the war, pro-Iran armed groups have carried out several drone strikes against the US embassy and a logistics centre at the international airport.

Overnight from Friday to Saturday, at least three drone attacks targeted the logistics hub, according to two security officials.

However, the US embassy was not targeted for the third consecutive night, after the influential Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah pledged on Thursday to observe a five-day pause on attacking the embassy, under certain conditions.

The Iran-backed group, designated by Washington as a “terrorist organisation”, listed several conditions, including Israel ceasing its bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Separately, a fighter from the former paramilitary coalition Hashed al-Shaabi was killed late Friday in a strike on a military airfield in northern Iraq. The group blamed the attack on the US and Israel.

On Thursday, the Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that combat helicopters had carried out strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq during the latest conflict.