Satellite images confirm Iraqi site hit, Israel blamed for airstrike

Israel was initially blamed for a blast at an Iraqi weapons depot that injured 13 earlier in the week.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

On Wednesday, Israel’s ImageSat International (ISI) posted before and after pictures online of a weapons depot in Baghdad that appeared to have been destroyed by an airstrike on Monday.

According to ISI, the satellite images confirm that the damage is consistent with an airstrike, “followed by secondary explosions of the explosives stored in the depot,” Times of Israel reported.

The day after the explosions rocked Baghdad, a former high-ranking Iraqi official blamed Israel for the incident, referring to “an oppressive colonial state” and “a treasonous Iraqi act,” according to the Times.

On the day of the strike, Iraq’s interior ministry announced that a large explosion at an ammunition depot southwest of the capital, Baghdad, injured 13 people, most lightly.

Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, a ministry spokesman, claimed it was not immediately clear what caused the blast at the al-Saqr military base.

The explosion was heard throughout the city and smoke billowed in the air Monday evening.

The base houses a weapons depot for the Iraqi federal police and the mainly Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. The state-sanctioned PMF militias, Iranian proxy forces, have fought alongside Iraq’s regular armed forces against the Islamic State group.

Israel did not comment on speculation it was behind the strike.