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The
statement did not elaborate on which security services the
alleged perpetrators were linked to, but said several of them
had been arrested and work was ongoing to arrest others.
Iraqi security forces had also arrested individuals who assisted
the perpetrators with logistical support for the attack and
facilitated their movements near the highly-fortified Green Zone
where the attacks took place, the statement said.
The attack, the first on the embassy in well over a year, was
seen as an escalation in weeks of attacks on U.S. forces in the
region that were claimed by Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim armed groups
with close links to Iran.
No group has claimed responsibility specifically for the embassy
attack.
It was condemned by top U.S. officials, who called on Iraq to
hold the perpetrators to account and reiterated that the U.S.
maintained the right to respond, as it has several times with
air strikes on militants.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani described the
embassy attack as an act of terrorism.
Some of the heavily armed Shi'ite Muslim groups that have
claimed a role in many attacks also form brigades in the Popular
Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi state security force technically
under the command of Sudani himself.
Those factions have vowed to continue the attacks, citing
Washington's backing of Israel in its devastating bombardment of
Gaza and the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, whom they describe
as an occupying force.
Aside from its diplomatic staff in Iraq, the United States has
about 2,500 troops in the country on a mission it says that aims
to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence
of the militant group Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large
swathes of both Iraq and Syria before being defeated.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Writing by Timour Azhari and Ahmed
Elimam, Editing by Michael Georgy, Alex Richardson, Alexandra
Hudson)
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