Rocket hits near US embassy in Baghdad: security sources

Baghdad: Two rockets landed near the US embassy in Baghdad overnight, security sources told AFP early Tuesday, with foreign diplomats there reporting emergency sirens repeatedly going off.

The latest attack within the walled-off Green Zone, which hosts foreign embassies and Iraqi government buildings, comes amid heightened tensions between Baghdad's two main allies, Tehran and Washington.

A foreign security source inside the Green Zone said two rockets hit near the embassy and a third fell into the Tigris River, which the US embassy overlooks.

"One hit about three meters (ten feet) inside a gate on the embassy compound," the source told AFP.

An Iraqi security source confirmed to AFP that at least one Katyusha rocket landed near the embassy shortly before midnight and was found to have been fired from an area south of Baghdad.

The Iraqi military said two projectiles hit the edges of the Green Zone.

Foreign diplomatic sources within the diplomatic area said US embassy sirens wailed across the area twice during the night.