At least five US personnel were injured in a rocket attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, Reuters reported on Monday, citing US and Iraqi sources.
The US officials said one of the Americans who was wounded had serious injuries and that the number of casualties could change as the damage is still being assessed. The Iraqi sources said two Katyusha rockets were fired at the base.
The attack comes as the region is on edge and expecting an Iranian reprisal attack on Israel for the killing of Hamas’s political chief in Tehran. Iran’s allies, including the Shia militias in Iraq that have taken credit for previous rocket attacks on US bases, could be involved in the response.
The US is vowing it will defend Israel from any Iranian reprisal, making it possible that US military assets are targeted in a coordinated response by Iran and its allies. There’s no sign yet that Iran’s reprisal has started, and the rocket attack on Ain al-Asad is likely a response to airstrikes the US launched in Iraq last week.
On July 30, the US launched airstrikes in Iraq that killed four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mainly Shia militias that are part of Iraq’s security forces. The strike on the PMF was strongly condemned by the Iraqi government, the US’s supposed partner in the country.
The US bombed the PMF after rocket attacks targeted US bases in Iraq and Syria, which caused no damage or casualties.
From October 2023 until February, US bases in Iraq and Syria came under hundreds of rocket and drone attacks. Iraqi Shia militias began the attacks in response to US support for the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
After three US troops were killed in an attack on Tower 22, a secretive base in Jordan on the Syrian border, Iran and the Iraqi government pressured the militias to stop, and there have only been a handful of attacks since February.
Earlier this year, Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani called for the US to withdraw from Iraq over US airstrikes on the PMF. The US and Iraq have entered talks on the future of the US military presence, and Baghdad reportedly wants a drawdown to begin in September, but no concrete plans have been announced.