Did Iran deliberately avoid US casualties in ‘revenge strike’?
- Defence Secretary Mark Esper said damage at the Al-Asad airbase was ‘nothing that I would describe as major’
- US and Iran both appear to signal desire to avoid further conflict
The commercial satellite images show the damage Iranian missiles left on the remote Iraqi airbase – charred rubble where hangars or other facilities once stood and a gaping crater alongside a runway, while nearby buildings stood unscathed.
Less clear is what the high-resolution images reveal about Iran’s intent in targeting the Al-Asad airbase, which houses US troops, or the precise capabilities of Tehran’s vast missile arsenal.
Tehran may have carried out a limited strike that specifically targeted hangars, not barracks or other buildings more likely to contain US or coalition troops in the predawn hours Wednesday. No casualties were reported after the attack.
“If they were going for a body count, they went the wrong way about it,” said David Joseph Schmerler, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, in California.
Pentagon officials conceded that the damage was not extensive – “nothing that I would describe as major,” Defence Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon – but suggested that was a lucky accident, not Iran’s intent.
The missile salvo was “intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft and to kill personnel,” said US Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
