A U.S. soldiers stands on the tarmac before making his journey home from al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 1 , 2011. More than a decade later, and U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq have come under frequent attacks in October and November 2023 as tension boils in the Middle East with Israel’s war against Hamas. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) Khalid Mohammed/ASSOCIATED PRESS

US military carries out deadly strike in Iraq after attack against US troops

Mike Brest November 21, 02:54 PM November 21, 02:54 PM Video Embed

U.S. troops killed hostile forces in Iraq after the militants had carried out an attack against U.S. and coalition forces at Al-Asad Air Base on Monday.

The incident began when Iranian-backed militias fired a close-range ballistic missile at the air base, injuring eight troops and incurring minor infrastructure damage, a CENTCOM spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. Immediately after the attack, a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired at a vehicle the spokesperson said was carrying militia members and killed “several” of them.

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“Immediately following the attack, a U.S. military AC-130 aircraft in the area conducted a self-defense strike against an Iranian-backed militia vehicle and a number of Iranian-backed militia personnel involved in this attack,” the spokesperson added. “This self-defense strike resulted in several enemy casualties.”

There have been roughly 66 attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria from Iranian-backed proxies since Oct. 17, who are there to ensure ISIS does not reconstitute, that have resulted in more than 60 U.S. troops who reported injuries, at least 25 of whom had traumatic brain injuries, though that number does not include the injuries incurred on Monday.

Prior to Monday’s incident, the U.S. military had launched three sets of airstrikes against facilities used by the proxies in Syria. This is the military’s first response in Iraq since Oct. 17. U.S. troops targeted a training facility and a safe house on Nov. 13, hit a weapons storage facility on Nov. 8, and struck a weapons storage facility and an ammunition storage area in Syria on Oct. 26.

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“Taking us back — is deterrence working? We feel that it is,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters last week. “We have not seen this war spread into a wider regional conflict. We have … conducted three different strikes. We responded most recently this weekend. And again, we will always reserve the right to respond at a time and place of our choosing in the future.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner last week that the U.S.’s response to these attacks have not “been forceful enough or frequent enough.” He urged the military to carry out more strikes and to expand to a “broader array of targets” in order to achieve deterrence.

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