(Previous Incident Code: ISIRQ260330a )

On the evening of Monday, 30 March 2026, at least two individuals were injured by falling debris of an intercepted drone in the Al-Shalijya neighbourhood of West Baghdad, Iraq. The identities of the injured individuals were not found among local sources.

Reporting on the day of the incident, Kurdish news outlet Basnews cited a police official who stated that a drone targeting the U.S. Embassy was intercepted by Iraqi air defenses in the evening. An Iraqi security source speaking to 964Arabi the following evening confirmed that Iraqi forces had shot down a drone in West Baghdad. The source stated that “several civilians” had been injured from the drone’s shrapnel. Other media sources later specified that two civilians were injured and three cars were damaged.

Almost two months later, on the 24 May 2026, local media sources reported on the same number of injuries and material damage due to drone shrapnel falling in the same district. It is unclear if the incident reported by these sources resulted from the same, individual strike or if they represented the total number of injuries resulting from multiple strikes in a certain time period. Diljah Satellite Channel shared an interview carried out on the same date between one of its correspondents and an eyewitness of the drone attack in the Al-Shalijya area, who recounted his experience: “We were here in the Al-Shaljiya district. A short while ago, I heard the sound of a drone; seconds later, I heard the sounds of explosions. One [piece of debris] struck here and another landed about 300 metres away. A car was hit here, and over there, a person sustained an injury to his leg.”

Sources varied regarding the parties involved in the incident. Yaqin News attributed the attack to unnamed “Pro-Tehran militias” and was the only source found by Airwars that named a belligerent responsible for the incoming weapon(s). As for the party responsible for intercepting such projectile(s), most sources simply noted that “air defenses shot down a drone; however, Basnews Arabic reported via Facebook that “a person was injured Monday evening when debris from a drone heading toward the US Embassy in Baghdad fell after it was intercepted by Iraqi air defenses, according to a police official” while Facebook account ‘Live News’ reported that “a number of citizens were injured in the Al-Shaljiya area of Baghdad as a result of the firing of projectiles by the US Embassy’s defense systems in the Green Zone.” Due to the uncertainty, the strike status has been graded as “contested”.