Five injured in Baghdad blast as officials suspect Israel hit Chinese missile depots

Iraqi authorities believe Israel conducted strikes on two sites where Iran-backed militias stored shoulder-fired air defense systems made in China. Sources cited by the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday said Tehran supplied the weapons. The strikes occurred last week, shortly after the shipments arrived at both locations.

One source said the militia group that selected the storage location considered it difficult to reach or detect. The newspaper noted that the report provided no specific model for the air defense system and acknowledged that some details remained unconfirmed. A security official stated that while Iraqi authorities had not fully determined the nature of the attacks, they possessed enough evidence to attribute them to Israel.

An explosion on October 17 at a Popular Mobilition Forces base in Baghdad's East Canal area injured five people. The PMF initially described the event as an accident involving a stockpile of obsolete ammunition. The Iraqi government promised an investigation, but an anonymous official said inquiries were still ongoing more than a week later.

Other sources linked the mid-October blast to an earlier incident on October 1. Warehouses connected to Iran-backed groups in and around Baghdad were affected in that earlier event. Those sites reportedly held drones intended for suicide attacks and reconnaissance missions.

This is not the first time Iraqi officials have suspected Israeli involvement in regional strikes. Militias blamed Israel for attacks in 2019 and for a strike near the Iraqi border in Syria. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel established a secret airstrip in Iraq during its campaign against Iran. Unconfirmed accounts also described Israeli fighter jets flying through Iraqi airspace with midair refueler support.

Iran has armed Iraqi militias for years, providing missiles and drones capable of threatening Israel. These groups carried out numerous attacks on Israel after the war began in October 2023. Since the US and Israel began airstrikes in February, Iran has sought to use Iraq as a frontline. Iran and allied militias have conducted 600 attacks across Iraq, some targeting US diplomatic sites. The US withdrew its forces from Iraq on September 30.

The newspaper connected the recent strikes to earlier reports of China supplying weapons to Iran, though it described that link as unconfirmed. China's Foreign Ministry denied those reports on July 28. A source in the Shi'ite Coordination Framework said ruling party leaders had predicted renewed war would begin with the destruction of Iraqi faction capabilities. Most major PMF groups, except the Badr Organization, are sanctioned by the US as terrorist organizations. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq recently claimed Iraqi airspace was being violated.