3 booby-trapped drones hit U.S.-led coalition base in N. Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Three booby-trapped drones hit on Tuesday a U.S.-led coalition base in Erbil airport, located in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Two drones, which attacked the base in the morning, were shot down in the airport area, and a third drone crashed and failed to explode in the same area, the regional Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement without revealing casualties.

Separately, an unnamed Kurdish security source told Xinhua that the U.S. anti-aircraft weapons shot down two of the drones.

Later in the day, an armed group calling itself the "Islamic Resistance in Iraq," which is an umbrella body for Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, claimed responsibility for the drone attacks, saying its fighters launched two drones toward a U.S. military base and hit their targets.

The group provided no further details about the third drone in its brief statement.

The Islamic militant group on Monday claimed responsibility for six attacks on four military bases in Syria and Iraq, the latest of its rocket and drone attacks on military bases housing U.S. forces in the two countries following the Isreal-Hamas conflict that broke out early last month.