Pentagon officials say several US service members have been injured in a ballistic missile attack against Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, where American military forces and trainers are stationed on alleged training and advisory missions.
Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement that the attack on Monday night involved a close-range ballistic missile and resulted in eight injuries and infrastructural damage.
Ryder added that the US military responded with a strike, and an AC-130 aircraft in the area conducted an aerial assault against a vehicle and a number of people involved in this attack.
The US military conducted further “precision strikes” against two facilities in Iraq early on Wednesday morning local time, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The US service members wounded in the attack are still being evaluated, a Pentagon official told CBS News.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the attack on Ain al-Asad Airbase.
It also claimed responsibility for the strike on the US-run facility in al-Shaddadi town, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Syria’s northwestern city of Hasakah, early on Wednesday.
The group noted that the attacks were carried out in retaliation for US support of Israel’s bloody war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
At least 14,128 Palestinians, including 5,840 children and 3,920 women, have been killed in the atrocious Israeli onslaught. More than 33,000 individuals have sustained injuries as well.
Earlier this month, Abu Alaa al-Walaei, secretary general of the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, emphasized that retaliatory assaults by Iraqi resistance fighters on American occupation forces will continue unabated.
He said the strikes on US military positions in Iraq will stop only when the Israeli strikes on Gaza end, and humanitarian aid convoys reach locals in the besieged Palestinian coastal territory without any restrictions.
The secretary general of the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada group also said the Islamic Resistance in Iraq will firmly stand by the side of the Palestinian nation and its resistance fighters.
The United States, Israel’s biggest ally, has provided the regime with arms and ammunition since the initiation of the Gaza war.
Washington has also vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions that called on the occupying regime to cease its aggression.
“US forces have been attacked approximately 66 times since October 17. Thirty-two separate times in Iraq and 34 separate times in Syria,” the Pentagon’s deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said during a media briefing on Tuesday.
US personnel have sustained approximately 62 injuries in these attacks, Singh added, noting that the number of injuries does not include those sustained during the Monday night attack.
