Nasser Nasser/AP
An unknown variety of U.S. service members and at the least one Iraqi service member suffered accidents in an assault by Iranian-backed militants on an air base in western Iraq, U.S. officers stated.
A barrage of missiles and rockets focused the Ain al-Asad base on Saturday night, U.S. Central Command stated in a press release.
A lot of the missiles had been intercepted by the bottom’s air protection programs, based on the army, however an untold quantity hit the bottom the place People and Iraqis are stationed. A injury evaluation is ongoing.
A “quantity” of U.S. personnel are being evaluated for traumatic mind accidents, CENTCOM stated, with out specifying what number of.
Final month, three U.S. service members had been wounded, one critically, in a drone assault on their base in northern Iraq. The U.S. responded with airstrikes that it stated destroyed services and certain killed plenty of Kataib Hezbollah militants in Iraq.
It is the most recent in a sequence of back-and-forth assaults between Iran-aligned teams and U.S. forces within the area because the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that led to the lethal conflict in Gaza. Since then, the U.S. has issued warnings of a wider conflict within the area. Hamas is a part of a regional alliance supported by Iran and loosely united by their resistance to Western powers and Israel.
NPR’s Tom Bowman contributed to this report.