White House said to dispute claim site targeted in Iraq was Israeli training center

A New York Times reporter who earlier tweeted that a US official claimed a building in Iraqi Kurdistan was used as by Israel now says the White House is disputing that claim.

Correspondent Farnaz Fassihi says an official in President Joe Biden’s administration told her colleague Eric Schmidt, who covers national security for the paper, that the claim was incorrect.

Update from @EricSchmittNYT: A senior Biden administration official refuted the earlier comment by a US official, saying the administration believes that the building that was hit was a civilian residence only and did not also serve as an Israeli training site.

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) March 14, 2022

“A senior Biden administration official refuted the earlier comment by a US official, saying the administration believes that the building that was hit was a civilian residence only and did not also serve as an Israeli training site,” she tweets.

Fassihi earlier claimed that a senior US official told Schmidt that the building had been an Israeli training site. The newspaper has yet to publish a story on the comments.