US troops hurt in rocket attack on US Air Base in Iraq.

 

File photo of an F-16 at al-Asad air base in Iraq. BBC Getty.

US Troops at al-Asad air base in Western Iraq were injured in a rocket attack. BBC. It is unclear how many troops were injured or what branch they were from, but nobody was killed or faced critical injuries. Two rockets were fired at the base and one landed inside of it. Nobody has taken credit for the attack, but it comes at a time of extreme tensions between Iran and Israel, with US troops potentially being in the middle. The al-Asad Air Base has been in use since 2004 and has come under attack by Iran backed militias before, including an incident this January where at least one solider was injured. 

My Comment:

I know the big story is the stock market crash on Wall Street, but I have to admit not being an expert on the economy at all. And I don't know how much I could add, so I decided to write about the Middle East instead. 

This was a fairly minor attack that is only notable because US troops got injured and the context of when the attacked happened. It's always notable when US troops get injured and it also brings up the question why those troops are still even in Iraq. 

And it's clear that those troops are there to participate in whatever conflict breaks out between Israel and Iraq. The fighter jets there could be used to intercept Iranian missiles, drones and even potentially jets. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that this base came under attack for those reasons. I am guessing the attackers were Iranian backed militants who decided or were ordered to cause a little chaos in anticipating to the upcoming war. They didn't accomplish much, but given that a few troops were injured they did accomplish something. 

This was also probably an attempt to get intelligence about the defenses of this base and it is notable that these rockets weren't shot down. It could be that anti-air defenses are a bit exhausted given the recent conflicts in Israel and Ukraine. These were fairly small rockets though, so they might not have been all that intercept-able in the first place. 

It's unclear when exactly the conflict between Israel and Iran will happen. I thought it was going to happen sooner, but given that Russia is now coordinating with Iran it's possible it might be delayed a bit. Either way, it's unclear how much involvement there will be with the United States. We will clearly be knee deep in the war but until now I wasn't sure if our own troops in the Middle East would come under attack. With this attack though, it seems a lot more likely, if not inevitable. 

I should point out that it could be ISIS or al-Qaeda or some other Sunni militant group that isn't backed by Iran. That seems pretty unlikely given how little strength either group has in Iraq now but I should mention it for the sake of completion. 

But if it is Iran? We could see some major attacks on our troops in Iraq and Syria as they represent a problem for Iranian forces targeting Israel. There is a strong argument for the Iranians not wanting to drag the US into the war but I think the Iranians are confident that the United States is weak, and that is reinforced by the stock market crash today. And the US is likely to be dragged into the war regardless, so why not make sure that those troops are neutralized? This is not good news for our troops stationed in the Middle East...