The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Friday denied rumors of an evacuation at the building after the embassy was attacked earlier this week.
A tweet from a reporter saying the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was evacuated is not true, according to an embassy spokesperson in an e-mail to Fox News.
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“Ambassador Tueller is still in Baghdad and the embassy continues to operate,” the spokesperson said.
The rumor may have started with a Friday tweet from Kurdish & Australian journalist Hawar Ali, who wrote that a “large number of staff have been evacuated in #US embassy in #Baghdad.”
He later said “the ambassador and some staff still remain but some have been evacuated.”
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U.S. Central Command said in a statement earlier this week that the Dec. 20 attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone – which included 21 rockets – was likely from an “Iranian-backed Rogue Militia Group.”
The statement said that it was “clearly NOT intended to avoid casualties” and damaged buildings in the compound. The New York Times pointed out that Jan. 3 is the anniversary of the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, one of Iran’s top military figures.
The Times reported that at least one Iraqi citizen was killed.
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President Trump issued a stern warning to Iran Wednesday after the rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, saying he will hold Tehran responsible if one American is killed.
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and Edmund DeManche contributed to this report.
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