On Wednesday, a rocket landed in the courtyard of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Ankawa, coinciding with a barrage of rockets and drones launched by Iraqi militia factions toward the city of Erbil.
Earlier in the week, unmanned aerial drones struck sites in the historically Assyrian towns of Batnaya and Bartella in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. Local security sources reported material damage but no confirmed casualties.
In Batnaya, an explosive-carrying drone dropped a device on a checkpoint belonging to a unit of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in the Tel Kaif District. The blast damaged infrastructure but did not injure personnel at the site. Batnaya is known for its historic Assyrian churches, including Mar Quriaqos and Mart Maryam, and forms part of the Assyrian ancestral homeland in the Nineveh Plains.
In nearby Bartella, another unmanned aircraft struck a facility linked to the PMF’s 30th Brigade, the Al-Basaer Charity Foundation.
Additional drone-dropped devices reportedly fell in other areas of the Nineveh Plain, while fragments from rocket fire struck the Bazwaya water project.
In response, the Nineveh Operations Command raised security measures across the region, placing Iraqi army and police units on higher alert as tensions continue to escalate.
