northern

BBC Sport NI’s Andy Gray

There’s no way of sugar coating it – losing Dan Ballard is a massive blow to Northern Ireland’s hopes of reaching a first World Cup in 40 years.

The Sunderland defender has been integral to the progress of Michael O’Neill’s young side and he has an impact in both boxes.

While he has always been a physical presence, his composure on the ball has also improved from playing Premier League football this season.

Excluding Kieran Morrison, who has only played in the cup competitions for Liverpool, losing two of his four Premier League players is awful luck for O’Neill, after Conor Bradley was sidelined with a knee injury in January.

Thankfully for NI, Ruairi McConville, who was also an injury doubt when the squad was announced, has played two sets of 90 minutes for Norwich City in the past week.

He will be an option for stepping in for Ballard and has impressed in his short international career to date, as will Oxford United’s Ciaron Brown and Bolton’s Eoin Toal.

Videos published by local Israeli platforms show Iranian missile fragments making impact in northern Israel.

Air strikes come hours after pro-Iran armed group Kataib Hezbollah announces conditional suspension of US embassy attacks.

Air strikes have killed two fighters from the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in northern Iraq, the paramilitary group says from one of the fronts in the sprawling war engulfing the Middle East.

The two attacks targeted PMF positions early on Thursday in the Nineveh region, where Mosul city is located, and a military airport in Salah al-Din province, according to statements from the PMF, a predominantly Shia group that is part of Iraq’s security apparatus and includes several groups aligned with Iran.

The PMF blamed the attack on Israel and the United States. Iraq has been drawn into the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its third week.

The PMF was formed in 2014 as a volunteer force supporting Iraqi security forces in the fight against ISIL (ISIS).

Strikes have targeted Iran-backed groups, which in turn have claimed near-daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region.

Elsewhere, a fire broke out at a naval base in southern Iraq when it was hit by a drone overnight. An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that a drone crashed into a water treatment station at the Umm Qasr naval base near the border with Kuwait.

Footage from the scene circulating on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed flames and smoke rising from the site.

US embassy attacks to be suspended

Hours before the attacks on PMF fighters, the pro-Iranian armed group Kataib Hezbollah said its secretary-general had “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days”.

Designated by Washington as a “terrorist organisation”, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah listed several conditions of the suspension, including Israel ceasing its bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Kataib Hezbollah also demanded “a commitment to refrain from bombing residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces”.

Whenever “the enemy violates” the truce, “the response will be immediate”, the group said, warning of more strikes after the five-day period.

The US embassy has been targeted by drone and rocket attacks several times in recent days. Air defences have intercepted most of the projectiles.

The embassy is in the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district in central Baghdad that houses Iraqi government institutions and embassies.

A US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad International Airport that houses military personnel has also been regularly targeted.

ideo from northern Israel captured the moment an Iranian missile impacted in a residential area early Friday morning. The aftermath shows a fire and scattered debris next to damaged vehicles and buildings.