US-Iran war: Projectiles kill seven in Iraq, including child

Baghdad: Projectiles killed an eight-year-old child and at least six other people in Iraq, officials said Tuesday, shortly before the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.

Iraq has been dragged into the Middle East war, with strikes targeting both US interests and pro-Iran groups in the country.

Also read: US-Iran ceasefire: Trump orders 2-week truce with Iran, Tehran says war not over


Washington and Tehran agreed to pause fighting barely an hour before US President Donald Trump's deadline to obliterate the rival country was set to expire, with Tehran to temporarily reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz.

A strike killed at least three civilians Tuesday in southern Iraq, near the Kuwait border, two local officials told AFP.

"A house was bombed by a plane in the city of Khor Al-Zubair, according to eyewitnesses," said Thaer al-Salhi, a member of Basra's provincial council.

"Neighbours say there were five people living in the house -- three men, a woman and a child, but only three bodies have been found so far," he added.

A security official confirmed that missile strikes on a house in Khor Al-Zubair had killed three civilians, adding that the strikes had been fired from Kuwait.

Also read: How many people have been killed in the Iran war?

Hours later, protesters attempted to storm the Kuwaiti consulate in Basra, where security forces responded by firing tear gas, an AFP photographer witnessed.

Two people, including an eight-year-old child, were killed late Tuesday in Baghdad when a projectile crashed into their home, causing a fire, a police source told AFP.

"Three other civilians, including a woman, were wounded" in the western Amiriya district of the Iraqi capital, according to the source. A security official told AFP earlier that "a rocket fell on a house in the Amiriya district".

And in Iraqi Kurdistan, a drone "coming from Iran" killed a couple after crashing into their home, local authorities reported early Tuesday.

The autonomous region's Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement that the incident took place on Monday "when a bomb-laden drone coming from Iran crashed into a civilian home in... the Dara Shakran subdistrict within Erbil Province".

Erbil governor Omed Khoshnaw said in a Facebook post that the civilians' deaths was tantamount to "a violation of international law and a war crime."