US personnel suffered minor injuries during an attack Saturday on the Ain Al-Asad airbase base in western Iraq amid escalating conflicts in the Middle East, according to reports.
A US defense source and Iraqi police official told AFP that at least a dozen missiles were fired at the base, which hosts US and other international military troops in Iraq.
“Al-Asad airbase was targeted by 15 rockets,” an Iraqi police official told the outlet, adding that attacks came from within Anbar province, the southwestern Iraq region where the base is located.
The police official added that while 13 of the projectiles were shot down, “two fell on the airbase.”
The US defense official confirmed that “missiles impacted Al-Asad airbase,” and that a damage assessment was being conducted.
The individuals injured were not immediately identified.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose coalition of Iran-backed militia groups opposing US support of Israel amid its war with Hamas, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack, AFP reported.
In addition to the American personnel injuries, a member of Iraq’s security forces was severely wounded during Saturday’s strike, according to a US official.
Saturday’s attack came as a barrage of strikes pounded Iran-linked targets across the Middle East Saturday, with tensions continuing to swell in the wake of Israel’s war with Tehran-backed Hamas on Oct. 7.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, an Israeli missile strike on Saturday wiped out five members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – including the head of the elite force’s information unit, according to reports.
Hours later, a separate drone strike in the Lebanese city of Tyre hit a car and killed two members of Hezbollah.
Since Oct. 7, Tehran proxy militia forces have attacked the US military at least 58 times in Iraq along with another 83 times in Syria, as vengeance for its support of Israel.
The US has 900 troops stationed in Syria and another 2,500 in Iraq to advise local forces on how to quell any possible return of the Islamic State, which managed to seize vast amounts of territory in both nations in 2014 before it was eventually defeated.
The Iraqi government is sweating the possibility of becoming a battleground between the US, Israel and Iran.
Following a US drone strike in Baghdad condemned by the Iraqi government, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office announced it was in the process of evicting American forces from the country.
The Pentagon said the drone strike killed a militia leader who was behind recent attacks on US personnel.
It added that it has not received any formal word from Baghdad about its troops being booted and that it was in the country at the Iraqi government’s invitation.
With Post wires
