US and Iraqi forces have arrested three Iraqi men suspected of launching rockets on Baghdad's fortified Green Zone district during a trip by US Vice President Joe Biden, the US military said on Wednesday.




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Militants pounded the Green Zone with rockets and possibly mortar rounds on Tuesday shortly after Biden flew into Baghdad for talks with Iraqi politicians on reconciliation.
A Sunni Arab insurgent group called the Mujahideen Army, which has links to militant al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks in a communique issued on jihadist chat rooms, according to a report by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Iraqi police said there were four separate mortar attacks, one of which landed on an apartment block, killing two Iraqis and wounding five.

Two others landed near the US Embassy, but there were no reports of casualties. The Mujahideen Army said it fired rockets, not mortars.

A press briefing with US ambassador Chris Hill and US military commander General Ray Odierno was repeatedly interrupted by the explosions.

The US military said in a statement its forces, working with soldiers from an Iraqi army division, located the suspected launch site but were fired upon from a nearby house.

"As elements from the joint patrol maneuvered against the small arms fire, a second group captured three Iraqi males and three rocket rails believed to have been used in the attack," the statement said.

Rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone, which used to be a more or less daily occurrence 18 months ago, have become relatively rare in recent months.

US and Iraqi officials say better policing and quicker responses to attacks have helped cut violence in Baghdad over that time period. But incidents like Tuesday's salvo and two truck bombs on Aug. 19 that killed 95 people at the foreign and finance ministries underline how fragile those security gains are.

Biden met Iraqi officials on Wednesday to urge them to take advantage of better security to make progress on long-standing disputes between Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite communities over land, oil and power.

Biden had met with the US ambassador, Chris Hill, and the senior US military commander, Gen. Ray Odierno, just before the mortar strikes. He was safe in an undisclosed location, aides said, his whereabouts kept secret for security reasons.

A briefing for journalists by Hill and Odierno was interrupted by the sound of explosions. A loudspeaker at the embassy broadcast a warning to duck and take cover. The US military said it knew of only one blast from incoming fire, which hit near the Green Zone but not inside it