US soldiers knew the Al-Asad base in Iraq was about to come under attack hours before it took place. What they didn't know was how would the Iranians hit the base, a couple of days after a US drone strike killed Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
During an exclusive tour of the military base that came under attack this week, a CNN journalist was told that most US troops were either flown out or had been sheltering in bunkers by 11:00pm local time when the base came under attack. At around 1:30am, Iran fired multiple missiles at the base, targeting only the US areas of it that roughly comprise a quarter of the entire area.
Referring to the incident as a "miracle", US troops--speaking for the first time ever since the attack that sent shockwaves across the world occurred--said some soldiers remained outside throughout the attack as missiles hit targets just a few feet away from their bunkers.
US troops said they knew Iran would attack the Al-Asad base. However, they weren't aware about the nature of the attack.
Iran brought tensions to a new high between Washington and Tehran when it fired a volley of missiles at Al-Asad base--just one of two military bases in Iraq that came under attack that day. Tehran said the attack was retaliation for the US drone strike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Iraq Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi said Iran had sent a verbal warning that certain US targets in the country would be hit. A top diplomatic source told CNN that Iraq conveyed the information to US about "which bases would be hit" after the message was received from Tehran.
The attack, which lasted for two hours, stopped at dawn. That is when US troops came out to ascertain the damage caused by the missiles.
US President Donald Trump had visited the base last year to spend time with American soldiers there.
"We came in, we felt very safe coming in. It was a pretty difficult journey in certain ways, but we felt very, very good, very safe," Trump had said about the base.
The Al-Asad military base lies in Iraq's Anbar province. It is one of the oldest and largest military bases that houses American troops.
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