At least two US service members stationed in western Iraq were injured on Saturday when their air base came under heavy rocket and missile fire from what American officials said were Iran-backed militias, as the ripple effects of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip continued to roil West Asia.
Ever since Hamas, also an ally of Iran, charged into Israel and carried out terror attacks on October 7, Israel has retaliated with an overwhelming and ferocious offensive, and groups sympathetic to Hamas’s cause have attacked Israeli and American targets.
A US official cautioned that initial information was sketchy and that the number of injured could grow as damage reports from officers in Iraq are passed up the chain of command. A number of American military personnel were being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries. One Iraqi soldier was injured as well, said Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, the military spokesman for Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al Sudani.
The attack against Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, which came at 6.30pm local time, was the latest and the most serious of roughly 140 such rocket and missile strikes against US troops based in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war started. At least 10 rockets and seven short-range ballistic missiles were fired at the base, with two making it through air defence systems, in the most successful attack the militias had carried out so far. The attack was another example of the region being pulled into a broader conflict.
Israel and Hezbollah, another Iranian ally, have traded fire across the Lebanese border. A Houthi militia in Yemen, also backed by Iran, has fired missiles and drones at commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, calling it a retaliation for the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. The US and its allies have fired back, striking inside Yemen multiple times.
The hostilities have spread from there. In recent days, Iran fired missiles into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, calling it a defensive strike against terrorist groups, but also claiming to have gone after an Israeli intelligence base. Pakistan said it had swiftly struck back with airstrikes inside Iran.
On Saturday, Iran accused Israel of launching an airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus, killing five Iranian military figures. Soon after, the missile and rocket barrage hit US troops at the air base in Iraq.
The Al Asad Air Base, in Iraq’s western desert, is now primarily used by Iraqi forces but still has a US contingent.
Iranian-linked militias in Iraq, known collectively as the Axis of Resistance and who count themselves as part of Iran’s network of allies across West Asia, claimed in a statement that this latest attack was a response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Hezbollah fighters
Two Hezbollah fighters were killed on Sunday when an Israeli drone hit their vehicle in southern Lebanon, security sources said.
New York Times News Service
