Roadside bomb hits US-led coalition trucks near Iraq's Baghdad

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Baghdad [Iraq]: A roadside bomb struck a convoy of trucks belonging to the US-led coalition forces near Baghdad, the Iraqi military said on Tuesday.
The blast took place in Taji area, some 20 kilometres north of Baghdad, and resulted in the burning of a container carried on one of the convoy's trucks, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a brief statement.

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No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but terror groups have frequently targeted US-led coalition convoys, which usually travel from neighboring Kuwait to the coalition bases in central and northern Iraq.
The attacks came as Iraqi-US relations have witnessed a rise in tensions since January 3 when a US drone struck a convoy at Baghdad airport, which killed Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.

More than 5,000 US troops have been deployed in Iraq to support the Iraqi forces in the battles against the Islamic State (IS) terrorists, mainly providing training and advising to the Iraqi forces.
The troops are part of the US-led coalition that has also been conducting air raids against IS targets in both Iraq and Syria. (ANI/Xinhua)