News - Middle East - Iran: January 8 marks the anniversary of an attack by Iran on an Iraqi air base housing American troops in retaliation for the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

On January 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps launched a barrage of missiles at the Ayn al-Assad air base which housed American troops in Iraq’s Anbar province. The attack codenamed operation Martyr Soleimani was in retaliation for the US assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. He was martyred near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020 in a drone strike authorized by former U-S President Donald Trump. All of the missiles hit their designated targets as American forces failed to intercept any despite a high level of readiness in American bases across the region in the wake of Iran’s pledge to avenge the assassination. In the meantime, Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei stressed that the attack on Ayn al-Assad was just a warning.

Meanwhile, Trump sought to portray the missile strike as a minor incident. Shortly after the attack, he tweeted “All is well.” Later, in a press conference at the White House, he tried to play down the magnitude of the attack.

Controversially, media reports along with satellite images showed that the damage done to the base was much greater than what US officials acknowledged. They were also conflicting reports on the number of those wounded. Despite initially claiming that the strike resulted in no casualties, the Trump administration ultimately announced that 110 US suffered traumatic brain injuries

Since the assassination of General Soleimani, Iraqis repeatedly took to the streets and called for an end to the US presence in their country. Protests were followed by the country’s Parliament holding an extraordinary session in which the lawmakers voted to expel foreign forces.

Eventually, the US announced the end of its combat operation in Baghdad back in December 2021 under an agreement with Baghdad, but said some 25-hundred of its troops will remain on the ground as military advisors. Some analysts are skeptical that the presence of these so-called military advisors would mean further interference in Iraq’s affairs, as a complete US withdrawal from Iraq seems a far-fetched reality.

Source: Press TV