The Defense Department Monday confirmed that “several” U.S. personnel were injured Monday in what authorities said appeared to be a rocket attack against American and coalition forces at Al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq.
The base has been a frequent target for Iraqi Shiite militia groups that have long protested the American troop presence in the country and have close ties to the regime in neighboring Iran.
Countries all over the region have been bracing for a new round of violence after suspected strikes last week by U.S. ally Israel killed a senior Palestinian Hamas official visiting Tehran and a top commander of Lebanon’s Iran-allied Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
“Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment,” a senior Pentagon official told The Washington Times. “We will provide updates as more information becomes available.”
The condition of the U.S. personnel wasn’t known later Monday. It also wasn’t clear if any of the injured Americans were hospitalized after the rocket attack. No group had stepped up to claim responsibility for the attack.
Iranian and Hezbollah officials have vowed revenge against Israel after the last week’s assassinations, and the Biden administration dispatched new military forces to the region over the weekend in anticipation of a possible regional war.
U.S. military personnel officially withdrew from Iraq in 2011 but returned three years later to assist in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS.) Their mission is primarily focused on training and advising Iraqi security forces, but their presence is a constant source of political and security tension inside Iraq.
Separately, Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack early Monday on northern Israel that the Israeli military said wounded two Israeli troops. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah said it targeted a military base in northern Israel in response to “attacks and assassinations” by Israel in several villages in southern Lebanon. The attack did not appear to be the more intense retaliation that many are braced for from Iran and its allied militias.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months during the war in Gaza. But last week’s assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital and Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut sent regional tensions soaring.
The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened Israel on Monday over the assassination of Haniyeh, warning that Israel was “digging its own grave” with its actions against Hamas.
The Israeli military later said it had killed a local Hezbollah commander Monday in a drone strike on south Lebanon. The Israeli army said the Monday evening strike in the southern village of Ebaa killed Ali Jamaleddine Jawad whom it described as a local commander with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.
In Washington, President Joe Biden and Jordanian King Abdullah II spoke Monday and discussed the possibility of an “immediate” cease-fire and hostage release deal involving Israel and the Palestinians in order to “de-escalate regional tensions,” the White House said in a statement.
At almost the same time, Iran’s state news agency reported that the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, the former defense minister, had arrived in Tehran for talks on bilateral and international issues. Russia’s state Tass and RIA Novosti news agencies reported that Mr. Shoigu was scheduled to meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian; secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Akbar Ahmadian; and chief of the Iranian military’s General Staff, Mohammad Bagheri.
And in yet one more sign of the concern over what may come next, a U.S. defense official says the head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Eric Kurilla, has traveled to the Middle East region.
The official wouldn’t say where specifically Gen. Kurilla was, but added that he “often visits the region to work and consult with regional partners.”
• Staff writer Mike Glenn contributed to this report from Washington.
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