Iran’s military chief of staff denied Iranian involvement in a series of rocket attacks against Iraqi bases hosting U.S. forces. He contended that the attacks were “a natural reaction by Iraqi people” to the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimeni and a senior Iraqi militia commander in January, and posited that the “Americans are trying to pin them on us as part of their blame game”. He warned that “if [Americans] take the smallest step against the security of our country, they will be faced with the most severe reaction”, going on to claim that “recent days have witnessed an increase, to some extent, in the U.S.’s military activities across Iraq and the Persian Gulf. On the psychological and media fronts, too, they are engaged in massive dissemination of news denoting that they have plans against resistance groups in Iraq and Hashd al-Shaabi”.