No immediate information on casualties was available, and smoke was seen rising from the site, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source told Xinhua news agency on condition of anonymity

The attack followed a "US airstrike" about an hour earlier on a residential area in the Karrada neighbourhood in Baghdad, which killed a senior leader and two members of Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), and wounded five civilians in neighbouring houses, the ministry source said

Meanwhile, in an official statement, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command's Security Media Cell (SMC) condemned the dangerous and unprecedented escalation of targeting civilians and carrying out strikes within densely populated residential areas

The SMC called it an attack on human rights and said the act should be internationally classified as a crime

Earlier, on March 7, the US embassy in Baghdad was targeted by rockets, and explosions were heard, triggering its defence systems