AIN AL-ASAD AIR BASE: Waves of ballistic missiles, soldiers hunkered downin bunkers for hours, intense shock waves — a top US commander said hereacted to Iran’s unprecedented attack against an Iraqi base with“disbelief”.
In an exclusive interview with AFP at the Ain al-Asad airbase in westernIraq, Lt. Colonel Tim Garland said his superiors had given him “a couplehours of advance warning” last Tuesday night that an attack by Iran wascoming.
“My first reaction was shock, initial disbelief,” he said, sceptical thatIran would be capable, and willing, to conduct a bold attack on Ain al-Asad.
The airbase was targeted in retaliation for the US killing top Iraniangeneral Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad on January 3.
The base is one of the largest in Iraq, with 1,500 US troops making up thebulk of a coalition presence directly adjacent to thousands of Iraqi forces.
Getting those forces to safety was an act of quick thinking andcoordination across the army and air force commanders at Ain al-Asad,Garland said.
By 11:00pm (2000 GMT), US and coalition forces had evacuated from theirsleeping quarters and offices, and were hiding out either in fortifiedbunkers or dispersed across the base.
They waited, tense, for over two hours.
But not even their commander expected the strength of the blasts that camenext.
“When the first round came in, it was the loudest, most powerful noise I’veever heard,” Garland told AFP.
Shockwave ‘bowed door’
“There’s something unnatural about the air. The way it moved, the way itheated up; the shock wave that came in and bowed the door in and bowed itback out,” he said.
Starting at 1:35am and for the next three hours, around five volleys ofballistic missiles slammed into the base at varying intervals.
“I have not been that scared for a long time. It’s been a while,” saidGarland, who has served multiple tours in Iraq.
“We didn’t know what it was going to look like — if there was going to be acarpet bombing effect,” he added.
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When the strikes quietened around 4:00am, commanders and soldiers emergedfrom their bunkers to fires burning across the base, more than a dozenimpact sites but — miraculously — no casualties.
Two soldiers who had been in guard towers were blown out of their positionsbut only suffered concussion, the commander said.
“How they survived was a miracle of God,” Garland remarked.
He said the volleys that hit the base were timed in such a way as to tricksoldiers into thinking the bombing was over.
“It was just enough time to make you feel safe. It was my opinion that itwas intended to inflict casualties,” said Garland.
Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on Sundaythe missiles it fired in the early hours of Wednesday were not aimed atkilling American personnel.
By Monday, most of the impact sites had been cleared.
A bulldozer was piling up the last of the twisted metal and debris from thelast site, located by the base’s airfield.
A soldiers’ living quarters had been totally pulverised and still smelt ofcharred metal.
Soldiers who lived there told AFP they had lost all their personalbelongings — clothes, books, pictures of their families and mementos theyhad carried through more than a decade in the military.
But given the intensity of the strikes, Garland said, they were lucky.
“Theatre ballistic missile strikes. That’s unprecedented,” he said. – APP /AFP
