"While no US service members were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on al-Asad Air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed," US Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban said in a statement, AFP reported.
Iran launched a volley of missiles at Iraqi bases housing US forces on January 8 in retaliation for the US killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad International Airport the week before. At the time, senior American military officials said there had been no casualties and President Donald Trump tweeted “All is well!”
The US had advance warning and most of the 1,500 US servicemen and 500 soldiers from other coalition countries were in bunkers when the missiles struck.
The injured soldiers were evacuated to Germany and Kuwait for treatment, but are expected to return to Iraq once they are medically cleared, according to Defense One.
“As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate, are transported to a higher level of care. At this time, eight individuals have been transported to Landstuhl, and three have been transported to Camp Arifjan,” a senior US defense official told the outlet, referring to US military hospitals in Germany and Kuwait.
“About a week after the attack some service members were still experiencing some symptoms of concussion,” the official added. “We only got wind of this in the last 24 hours.”
Several media outlets were invited to tour Ain al-Asad base this week. Capt. Geoffrey Hansen told NPR that he was knocked off his feet by the force of the blast. “We didn’t know what was coming,” he said.
“It was like a scene from an action movie,” Staff Sgt. Costin Herwig told the New York Times of the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Iran maintains that killing US soldiers was not the goal of the operation. “We did not aim to kill,” Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Aerospace Force, said on January 9. “We intended to hit the enemy’s military machine.”
