Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a missile attack late Tuesday against two Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops.In a statement, the Defense Department said, “It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil.” The Pentagon said it was still assessing damage from the strike.A senior Iraqi official confirmed the strike on Al-Asad to The Daily Beast.Tasnim News, an Iranian news outlet closely linked to the IRGC, published a statement from the IRGC which claimed it fired “tens” of rockets at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in an operation dubbed “Operation Martyr Soleimani.” On Twitter, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham wrote that “We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq. The President has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team.”The IRGC claimed the strike was the country’s “vengeance” for the assassination of former Qods Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The operation follows a U.S. drone strike earlier this week which killed Soleimani, a powerful commander in Iran’s military and the officer in charge of Tehran’s wars in Iraq and Syria. The operation has plunged the U.S. and Iran into conflict after a summer which saw what the Trump administration said were escalating Iranian covert attacks against the U.S. and its allies in the region. An Iranian official, apparently taunting Trump, tweeted out a picture of the Iranian flag immediately after the attack, mimicking Trump’s own American flag tweet posted in the immediate aftermath of Soleimani's killing. The IRGC’s statement warned other countries housing U.S. military bases that they could become targets. In addition, the IRGC statement said: “By no means do we consider [Israel] separate in these crimes from the American criminal regime.”The IRGC-linked Fars News agency also published a video of what it said were rockets launched at Ain Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, which is home to a small number of U.S. forces. The video shows what appears to be a handful of rockets streaking through the night sky. The Pentagon said Iran’s attack included “more than a dozen ballistic missiles.” It’s unclear what kind of ballistic missile was used in the attacks but Iran’s missile arsenals include weapons which carry warheads weighing several hundred pounds in contrast to the smaller, unguided artillery rockets which the U.S. says Iranian proxy groups have used against American bases in Iraq over the past few months. Meanwhile, on the ground in Iraq, officials in both Baghdad and Erbil scrambled to get details of the rocket attacks in both cities. Senior leaders seemed to be unaware of exactly how many rockets had fallen and if there was significant damage to American infrastructure or whether anyone had been killed. “This is what we were afraid of,” said one Kurdish member of parliament. “We were afraid we’d get pulled into this struggle between the U.S. and Iran. And now we are seeing it.”“The Kurds want U.S. troops to stay. They’ve always wanted U.S. troops to stay. But in this environment the Kurds are going to be asking for a lot more backing and confirmation that the Trump White House is going to have their back,” said a former senior Obama administration official working on Iraq policy.Throughout the course of the U.S.-led war on ISIS, the al-Asad base was home to both American troops and military equipment, including MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1C armed drones. Unknown militants in Iraq attacked the base with smaller rockets in early December, shortly after Vice President Mike Pence arrived at the base for a visit.In a classified briefing to congressional staff last week, U.S. officials indicated that the precision of missile strikes could point to whether or not Iran was escalating hostilities, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the comments. Iranian proxy forces have long harassed U.S. targets with rockets that miss their targets; using missiles with more sophisticated targeting systems would be an indicator of heightened aggression from the Islamic Republic. Rep. Michael Waltz appeared to allude to the same issue in a Fox News appearance after the strike on Al Asad, saying a strike that didn’t result in casualties could be seen as de-escalatory. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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