BAGHDAD (AFP) – A rocket hit the BBC office in central Baghdad on Friday without causing casualties, security officials and the British broadcaster’s bureau chief told AFP.

The projectile slammed into the building at around 2:45 pm (1145 GMT), the BBC’s Patrick Howse said.

It “struck the roof of the BBC Baghdad bureau,” the bureau chief said. “It caused structural damage but no one was injured.”

A security official said earlier the blast had been caused by a mortar bomb.

Howse said the rocket gouged a one metre (yard) by 1.5 metre hole in the roof.

Officials say hundreds of rockets and mortar rounds have been fired into the centre of the capital since late March, mainly from Sadr City, the east Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Since March 25, US and Iraqi forces have been battling militants, mostly from Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Hundreds of people have been killed in the clashes.

The military claims the mortar rounds and rockets fired from Sadr City mainly target the Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government and the US embassy.