Security service destroys drone carrying military projectile in Kirkuk

KIRKUK — Iraq’s National Security Service said Friday it found a drone of unknown origin carrying a military projectile in Kirkuk governorate and destroyed both in a controlled detonation with the help of army engineers.

The service, Iraq’s domestic security agency, said intelligence work and field surveillance led its teams to the drone. Its teams and Iraqi army engineers then destroyed the aircraft and the projectile where they were found, the statement said.

The statement did not say where in the governorate the drone was found, what kind of projectile it carried, who launched it or what it may have been meant to hit. No casualties were reported.

The service said it would keep tracking anything that threatens the country’s security. It urged residents to report suspicious objects and not to approach or handle them.

The find comes less than two weeks after security forces engaged an unidentified drone near Baghdad’s Green Zone, according to the Security Media Cell, which gave no details of the aircraft’s origin.

Kirkuk saw several drone incidents early in the regional war, which began Feb. 28. On March 26, Iraqi forces shot down an unidentified drone flying at low altitude over al-Fakhira village, the Defense Ministry said. Troops from the 44th Brigade of the 11th Infantry Division brought it down without casualties, and the ministry did not identify its origin or target.

Two days earlier, security forces dismantled a drone that fell near the Abdullah Hamza power station in Kirkuk. The Electricity Ministry said the aircraft came down more than three kilometers from the plant and denied reports that the station had been hit. No casualties or damage were reported.