New footage sheds light on Iranian strike on US base in Iraq

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The U.S. military released previously unknown aerial footage of al-Assad airbase in Iraq during an unprecedented Iranian missile strike on the facility on January 8, 2020. This sheds light on what happened, writes the American Internet publication The Drive.

The video, captured by a drone in the sky, shows six Iranian Qaim-1 short-range ballistic missiles hitting the base. US Central Command (CENTCOM) declassified the video and released it on CBS News' 60 Minutes in late February 2021.




After the strike, it was reported that the base was hit by 11 Qaim-1 missiles and at least one hit Erbil International Airport, where US troops were also stationed.

Major of the US Army Alan Johnson clarified in the program that, according to intelligence, Iran was going to launch 27 missiles at the base. But he launched only 16 missiles, 5 of which did not work. As a result, 110 US military personnel suffered unspecified injuries, but fortunately no deaths were reported.


General Frank Mackenzie, head of CENTCOM, said the Iranian preparations had been uncovered well in advance. Before the rocket rain fell, Iran bought commercial satellite imagery of the al-Assad base. This made it possible to evacuate a significant part of the personnel, equipment and equipment... 51 planes and helicopters were redeployed before the strike, and most of the troops moved into the desert and watched the passing missiles. Thus, the effectiveness of the Iranian attack was seriously undermined, human lives and expensive equipment were saved.

The video shows how the first and second missiles hit the Bravo area (hangars). The third and fifth missiles hit the Charlie zone (hangars, offices, living quarters, canteens and toilets). The fourth rocket arrives at the Voodoo zone (hangars, fuel and lubricants warehouse). The sixth missile hits the rescue center, maintenance facilities and the Valley area gym.

The video was likely captured by one of several MQ-1C Gray Eagles drones in the air at the time. The strikes damaged fiber lines connecting ground control stations at the base to satellite terminals, cutting them off from the drones. This may explain why only six of the 11 mentioned hits are visible on the video.

There weren't enough bunkers for everyone. Each such shelter is designed for 10 people. Johnson said that 40 people gathered near one of these bunkers, who persistently tried to get into it. He and other officers talked about their feelings that they experienced during the event.

No one fully understood the scale of what we might face. We might not get over it

Said Air Force Captain Adella Ramos, Flight Chief of the 443rd Air Expeditionary Squadron.

If the Americans were killed, everything would be very different. We had a plan for revenge

- stressed the head of CENTCOM, hinting at the possibility of a war between the United States and Iran.

Subsequently, the US Army deployed air defenses in Iraq, including the Patriot air defense system, to protect itself from further missile attacks.
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    1. 123
      +4
      2 March 2021 11: 51
      Subsequently, the US Army deployed air defenses in Iraq, including the Patriot air defense system, to protect itself from further missile attacks.

      A somewhat strange carelessness. A war has been going on in the region for a long time, almost every "partisan" has a drone. In any case, they are used everywhere and regularly. There is only one reasonable explanation for this behavior - they did not fear an attack from the air. We were sure that the "jihadists" would not hit them. I don’t need to explain what that means. Unless this is, of course, the outright stupidity of the command staff of the US Army and they did not consider - to bomb the Americans against the rules, only they can bomb.
      Subsequent events showed that they were never able to "protect themselves from further missile attacks." Hegemordor is not the same today.
    2. +4
      2 March 2021 12: 28
      Not only "Patriots", they put a couple of "Shells" there.
    3. +4
      2 March 2021 14: 22
      There weren't enough bunkers for everyone. Each such shelter is designed for 10 people. Johnson said that 40 people gathered near one of these bunkers, who persistently tried to get into it.

      It should be understood that the first ten people who got into the bunker lock their armor behind them and that's it. As the saying goes, those who got up earlier got their slippers. Others scratch and whine outside the door. Remembering all this, Major Alan Johnson almost burst into tears on camera.
      1. -1
        2 March 2021 21: 37
        I wonder where such a translation was found? In fact, it sounded there:

        “There were six of us who ran to the nearest bunker in an attempt to save our lives ... When we got to it, we realized that about 40 people were trying to squeeze into this bunker, which was designed for only ten people. people pushed each other to survive.

        And of course, they forgot to add that after the attack on the Ein al-Assad base, the Iranians out of fear shot down a passenger Boeing of the Ukrainian company, mistaking it for an American bomber, killing 176 innocent passengers. They called it a tragic mistake.

        1. -1
          2 March 2021 23: 32
          You can of course quote Thedrive. But the journalists are there, they are such journalists))) They made a rather free description of what is said in the video) And after that, they added oversights in the translation hi Better to watch the video itself. It says so at 2.49. In general, the "damaged phone" in action)
        2. +1
          2 March 2021 23: 59
          When we got to it, we realized that about 40 people were trying to squeeze into this bunker, which was designed for only ten people. people pushed each other to survive.

          At the same time, the smell of panic was clearly felt in the air.
          1. 0
            3 March 2021 00: 02
            I agree. The video was aimed at precisely this, in order to make excuses for the fact that later they were not punished.
        3. +1
          3 March 2021 18: 58
          And the Americans in 1988. Iranian A 300 shot down, confusing it with a fighter, out of great courage ?.
          Killed 290 people - 274 passengers (including 65 children) and 16 crew members.
          The commander of the downed cruiser was then promoted very quickly.

          Regretting the loss of life and calling the incident a terrible human tragedy, the US government nevertheless did not formally plead guilty and did not apologize for the incident.
          1. 0
            3 March 2021 19: 10
            And the plane was 20 km away. To confuse the A300 with a fighter could only be a complete idiot.
    4. -4
      2 March 2021 14: 50
      IMHO, it's not about that.
      And the conclusion is that everything is negotiable, and the Americans just conducted an experiment and looked at the effectiveness of missiles and the Iranian Armed Forces in general.

      And all sorts of "horrors" are just ordinary confusion with a sudden order for exercises.
      1. 0
        2 March 2021 23: 59
        No, Seryozha. You know, I like to read your reasoning often. They always have common sense. But the direction of the video was originally based on a tragic component. On the one hand, the guy who is almost crying is delivering perhaps the last message to his family.

        Hello my friend. If you're watching this video, something bad happened to your dad last night, so I want you to be strong for your mom. Always know that I love you. Good bye, my friend".

        Before Major General of the US Army Alan Johnson wrote down this message to his son, an intelligence officer told him that they had information that Iran was preparing 27 medium-range ballistic missiles and that their target was the Iraqi Ein al-Assad air base. which is located about 120 km west of Baghdad, as he described in an interview with CBS TV "60 minutes"

        And then there are the details of how terrible everything was. But at the end it is said that by the morning all the damage had been repaired. In my opinion, it is just an excuse that we managed to avoid casualties, and therefore, we managed not to respond to the blow from Iran.

        “It was an attack certainly like nothing I've ever seen or experienced,” says Gen. Frank McKenzie about Iran's missile attack on a US airbase in Iraq. “They fired those missiles to significant range. And they hit pretty much where they wanted to hit.

        Mackenzie notes that the attack made them realize that the Iranian missiles are extremely accurate, especially since they were fired from a long distance.

        You might think that after the attack on the oil refinery in the SA, this was no longer known by that time :)))
        1. +1
          3 March 2021 09: 01
          You can be.
          But this is not their only such attack, without casualties, special opposition and with a predetermined time and values ​​deduced in advance.

          And, almost crying ... how many of these almost crying for some reason flashed in the media.
          1. 0
            3 March 2021 16: 07
            The Americans learned that the Iranians had bought commercial photographs of the airbase and had withdrawn personnel and equipment from there in advance ... Interesting. Didn't your Israeli friends help? Yes, and someone had warned in advance about the attack, right before her. The drone monitored the proposed attack site in advance. A strange kind of attack, about which everything is known to the attacked side ... because "Iran bought the photographs" ... yeah. Nobody sees "far-fetched", yeah. winked
        2. 0
          3 March 2021 17: 18
          I watched the video again.
          Impression - the warned Americans were simply surprised that the missiles were a bit more powerful than they imagined.
          Nothing critical, but unpleasant.
          There is no difference - middle-aged Americans, wrinkles on the forehead, unkempt, unruly, none, at least one zinger and put on everything for filming at first ...

          And well-groomed, smooth-skinned Iranian officers in the pictures.
    5. -7
      2 March 2021 18: 03
      This is a very good video. A good example for the cheers of the patriots shouting about their super weapons. The missiles fly far and accurately, and the concentration of troops on the bases makes it easier to defeat the enemy. If a real war broke out between the United States and Iran, of course Iran would be defeated, but the United States would also wash with blood. So we sit quietly in Tarutus and Khmeimim they have more missiles.
      1. +1
        3 March 2021 19: 05
        We have already tried a large number of missiles in Syria. Pooped up.
        So Kersti Kaljulaid gives advice on "sit quietly". And the grown-up guys will figure it out without snotty.
        1. -4
          5 March 2021 11: 10
          Who tried it, the USA or, as always, partisans with their own homemade products? You don't pretend to be adults there. You do not even have enough intelligence that those who are there fighting against the Russian Federation have no Air Force, no air defense, no military-industrial complex.
          When your lads from Wagner poked their heads into the US-controlled zone three years ago. From Wagner, only feathers flew. Share the video?
          YES, and who will really give you data on the results of the shelling of Khmeimim? And there were real hits and there were even damaged planes. And this is even from the weapons of the partisans.
          All your memory there is shorter than the tail of a hare ((((
    6. +4
      2 March 2021 18: 35
      ... 110 soldiers received unspecified injuries, is this still being clarified?
    7. +2
      3 March 2021 07: 49
      Quote: Vladest
      This is a very good video. A good example for the cheers of the patriots shouting about their super weapons. The missiles fly far and accurately, and the concentration of troops on the bases makes it easier to defeat the enemy. If a real war broke out between the United States and Iran, of course Iran would be defeated, but the United States would also wash with blood. So we sit quietly in Tarutus and Khmeimim they have more missiles.

      Millennium Challenge 2002 (Millennium Challenge 2002) is a large-scale exercise conducted by the US Armed Forces in mid-2002. The scale of the exercise makes it one of the largest-budget exercises in American military history - American General Paul Van Riper, who inflicted the greatest defeat on the United States. The exercises, which cost the treasury $ 250 million, included both tactical exercises of personnel and computer simulations of military operations. MC02 was planned as a grand test of future military "transformations" - the transition to new network technologies of warfare, providing more powerful weapons and tactics. During the simulated clash, the US forces were designated as "Blue", and the Iranian forces as red. The massive attack of the Reds overloaded the computers of the Aegis naval air defense system, the carrier-based aircraft did not manage to take off, turning into a heap of smoking metal. As a result, the nuclear aircraft carrier was "sunk", 10 cruisers, destroyers and frigates, as well as 5 landing ships and UDC, were seriously damaged. The equivalent of success in a real conflict would have killed 12 American sailors. The game was urgently stopped, none of the participants expected such a situation. Van Riper hoped that the Blues would develop new plans and the game would continue until the complete annihilation of the US Navy. But the ending was enchanting. The scenario of the game was changed to ensure victory for the blue fleet. Van Riper was ordered to turn off the radars and stop shooting down enemy aircraft. Among other insane conditions, it was announced that the ships that had sunk to the bottom were "restored to buoyancy." After that, the exercises continued according to the basic plan. But already without van Riper. The offended general did not want to take part in them anymore. The sunken ships cannot emerge and continue the battle, there was no fair play. In a real combat clash, this meant a complete defeat of the US military formations! Technically, Iran could have defeated the US in the Gulf back in 2002! Iran today is much more armed to destroy any enemy.
    8. +1
      3 March 2021 07: 57
      Quote: Diver D
      I wonder where such a translation was found? In fact, it sounded there:

      “There were six of us who ran to the nearest bunker in an attempt to save our lives ... When we got to it, we realized that about 40 people were trying to squeeze into this bunker, which was designed for only ten people. people pushed each other to survive.

      And of course, they forgot to add that after the attack on the Ein al-Assad base, the Iranians out of fear shot down a passenger Boeing of the Ukrainian company, mistaking it for an American bomber, killing 176 innocent passengers. They called it a tragic mistake.


      do not understand what you are talking about. the Ukrainian plane was shot down for a reason, but due to the circumstances that happened there, which the air defense system decided to whip up. in any other country, including even the United States or Israel, a passenger plane would have been treated in the same way if it had strayed from its intended course and headed for a military facility he would definitely have been knocked down without any questions, because every second is precious! and there is no need to accuse Iran of unprofessionalism, because in the place of the Iranians, the Americans did exactly the same! You should be worried about the strange thing that in the area of ​​the disaster, for some reason, suddenly there was some person who was filming the moment of the plane crash. it is obvious that he was not there by chance
      1. +1
        3 March 2021 10: 25
        It is immediately evident that you did not understand a word from the video. It says at the end about the downed plane. What Diver said. But they didn't even mention it here.
      2. +1
        3 March 2021 12: 11
        When one rocket flies away with a difference of half a minute, and then the second, the hand involuntarily reaches for the phone. Therefore, there were a lot of video reports. The plane took off completely in the designated corridor. See reports. It is for this reason that Iran admitted defeat by a missile, and not a technical malfunction.
    9. 0
      3 March 2021 08: 21
      Quote: oderih
      ... 110 soldiers received unspecified injuries, is this still being clarified?

      What amazingly clever Iranian missiles, falling on the heads of the amers, manage not to kill them, destroying only equipment and buildings ... the laws of physics cease to operate when Iranian missiles fly!