On the evening of February 15th, 2020, Iran-backed militants launched rockets at a US air base in Western Iraq, causing injures to at least 8 Americans and prompting an immediate response for retaliation.
The airbase, known as Ain al-Asad, is a key airbase which serves as an important staging point for US military operations in Iraq and Syria. This was not the first attack on US assets this month, as a few weeks earlier missiles were fired at US forces in another Iraqi base without causing any injuries.
In response to the Ain al-Asad attack, US President Donald Trump declared that Iran “appears to be responsible” and that the US would be “organizing some of the strongest sanctions ever imposed by the United States government” in response to the attack.
This attack was claimed by an Iran-backed militia, the Kataib Hezbollah, which is known to have close ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC has been designated by the US a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization’, meaning that it is subject to economic sanctions from the US. This attack is seen by experts as a possible retaliation for bureaucratic and military acts imposed by the US on Iran, including the targeted killing of an Iranian commander in Iraq last year, along with the imposition of the abovementioned terrorist organization sanctions.
In addition to plans to impose economic sanctions, the US also launched an airstrike at another Iranian base in Iraq, said to have killed 25 militia members and destroyed three targets. Yet, President Trump has made it very clear that the US does not seek any direct confrontation with Iran, but instead prefers a “diplomatic resolution to the tension between the two countries.
Regardless, this attack on US forces is clearly an alarming new development in the ongoing US-Iran crisis. One can only hope that direct confrontation can be avoided, and that diplomatic measures can be taken to bring about to resolution to the tensions.