Iranian Missiles Rain on Bases in Iraq
Tehran's response to the killing of Iranian military chieftain Qassem Soleimani threatens a deeper war.
Bases holding U.S. military personnel were hit today by multiple missiles from Iran, the Pentagon has confirmed. A base in Al-Asad in Iraq's Anbar province and a base in Irbil, Iraq, were both attacked.
Casualties, if any, have not been confirmed as of now. This is a fog-of-war situation in which the agreed-on facts will likely shift; for example, The New York Times reports that earlier today it had been believed "that rockets had been fired on Taji Air Base, an Iraqi military base where American troops are deployed," but now officials say "the reports of an attack there appeared to be false."
The Pentagon is reporting "more than dozen ballistic missiles" fired at the two bases, while the Iranians claim more than 30 were sent just to the Asad base.
According to the Times, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says its "fierce revenge" for the U.S. assassination of Corps chief Qassem Soleimani "has begun."
Fox is reporting that the
latest U.S. intelligence assessment showed Iran had more than 2,000 ballistic missiles, Pentagon officials told Fox News.
The USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier strike group has been in the Gulf of Oman along with guided-missile destroyers, a guided-missile cruiser and at least one submarine. The Navy warships and submarine together had hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles with pre-planned targets locked into the missiles.
The ships would be ready to fire if given the order, two senior Pentagon officials told Fox News.
We're now closer to an all-out shooting war with Iran, with costs and consequences likely to be as wasteful and horrific as the previous Middle Eastern interventions that President Donald Trump has criticized in the past.
