Drone crashes in Grand Faw Port container yard

BASRA — An unidentified drone crashed inside the container yard at Grand Faw Port in Basra on Wednesday morning, setting off an explosion that sent workers running from the area, according to local officials and footage recorded at the scene.

Faw District Commissioner Waleed al-Shuraifi told the Iraqi News Agency the drone came down in the container yard and was destroyed. “We did not record any material damage or human casualties as a result of this incident,” Shuraifi said. Authorities have not identified the drone’s origin or said what caused it to crash.

Grand Faw Port is one of Iraq’s largest infrastructure projects and is intended to become the country’s main deep-water port on the Gulf.

The crash comes after months of regional escalation that has drawn Iraq into the confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran. Since the conflict began earlier this year, Iran and Iran-aligned armed groups have launched repeated drone and missile attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, U.S. military facilities, the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, oil fields, airports, Peshmerga positions and other sites in the Kurdistan Region. Community Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan documented more than 750 attacks in the Kurdistan Region between late February and late May, carried out by Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups. Popular Mobilization Forces positions have also faced repeated airstrikes across Iraq during the conflict, killing about 100 of its members, which the group attributed to the United States and Israel.