Al-Monitor:

The Pentagon announced that a rocket struck an Iraqi base housing American troops today and that US forces had intercepted a Yemen-bound dhow carrying Iranian-designed weapons days earlier, extending the ongoing military tit-for-tat with pro-Iranian forces.

A defense official told Al-Monitor that the K1 base in the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk was hit by a Katyusha rocket at 8:45 p.m. local time today, causing no injuries.

The Iraqi media also reported today that troops found the launch pad and 11 rockets near the base, but had not tracked down the perpetrators. A rocket attack from Iranian-backed forces killed a US contractor at the base Dec. 27, sparking a cycle of violence that culminated in Iran’s Jan. 8 ballistic missile attack on Al-Assad airbase.

Today's strike came after the US Navy seized a cache of Iranian-origin weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels Feb. 9, the Pentagon said today, and just hours before the Republican-led Senate voted to limit President Donald Trump's ability to undertake offensive strikes against Iran in a 55-45 bipartisan vote.

Trump allies Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., notably crossed party lines today alongside six other Republicans.

Experts said the Katyusha strike and the interception of Iranian equipment were signs that a more normal pace of conflict had resumed after the Jan. 8 and Dec. 27 missile strikes against the United States and the Jan. 3 US drone strike that killed Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, a top general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“An elevated new normal is a good way to describe it. We're back to business as usual, which was expected after the events of the past couple of months,” said Ariane Tatabani, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation who follows Iran. “Iran was never going to just conduct a few direct strikes and call it a day.”

Tatabani said Iran has been careful about attacks following the Jan. 8 ballistic missile strikes that left 109 US troops with mild traumatic brain injuries. “The point was to make sure they bookended it so they could resume proxy action with a certain degree of plausible deniability,” she said.

The bevy of weapons captured by the Navy included 150 anti-tank missiles and other arms "of Iranian design and manufacture" such as surface-to-air missiles, weapon scopes and drone parts. The US Central Command said many of the systems “are identical” to Iranian components seized by the United States in November.

The developments could set the tone for more congressional pushback on the Trump administration’s "maximum pressure" campaign to rein in Iran’s use of proxies in nations such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is finally set to testify in front of the House’s powerful foreign affairs panel Feb. 28, a House aide and a former US official told Al-Monitor.

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