Iranian TV released a video purportedly showing missile preparations ahead of the Iranian strike on the US-operated al-Asad Airbase near Baghdad and the US military HQ near Ebril in Iraq on January 8.
The video shows warehouses housing the missiles in an undisclosed location as well as launch preparations by personnel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The strike was conducted in retaliation for the US assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Iran’s most powerful military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani, has been killed by a US airstrike in Iraq. The 62-year-old spearheaded Iranian military operations in the Middle East as head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, the division of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
U.S.-made AGM-114 Hellfire missiles were used in the recent strikes that claimed the lives of Iran’s Quds Force Commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani and his comrades, Iraqi sources revealed on January 3.
Iran has carried out Operation Martyr Soleimani: a ballistic missile attack on airbases housing U.S. forces in Iraq, in retaliation for the U.S. killing of General Qasem Soleimani.
More than a dozen missiles launched from Iran struck two air bases in Irbil and Al Asad, west of Baghdad. It is unclear if there have been any casualties.
“Between 1:45 a.m. and 2:45 a.m., Iraq came under an attack of 22 missiles,” the Iraqi military said in a statement. “All missiles struck coalition bases.”
Two Iraqi bases housing US and coalition troops were targeted, one at Al Asad and one in Irbil, at about 02:00 local time on Wednesday (22:30 GMT on Tuesday). It came just hours after the burial of Soleimani, who controlled Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East.
Just hours after the missile strikes a Ukrainian airliner crashed in Iran shortly after take-off. There is no evidence that the two incidents are linked.
