After the missile attack on the "Ain Al-Assad" base

Austin: America will do what is necessary to defend its forces in Iraq

Austin assured that Washington would deal a blow if it needed to.

Reuters

The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, said that the United States will do what it deems necessary to defend its interests, after the missile attack on the Iraqi air base of Ain al-Asad, which hosts US and Iraqi forces, as well as forces of the international coalition against the terrorist organization "ISIS".

Speaking to ABC News, Austin added yesterday that the United States urged Iraq to quickly investigate the incident and determine who was responsible.

"We will strike a blow if we think that we need it, at the time and place we choose. We demand our right to protect our forces," he said, adding that Iran would have to draw its own conclusions if the United States took action.

Last Wednesday, 10 missiles targeted the Ain Al-Asad air base, and Iraqi and Western security sources said that the attack resulted in the death of a civilian contractor with the US-led international coalition in Iraq, of a heart attack following the attack, without specifying his nationality.

The Security Media Cell affiliated with the Iraqi Security Forces Command indicated that the missiles used in the attack were "Grad" models, while "France Press" quoted Western security sources as saying that the missiles that targeted the base were of the Iranian-made "Arches" and were accurate. Higher than the missiles that usually target Western sites in Iraq.

The "Arch" missiles are an Iranian-made version of the "Grad" model. Previous Iranian reports talked about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s development of these missiles, with the aim of making them more accurate, so that their aiming accuracy becomes seven meters, and has a range of 22 kilometers, and it is equipped with a warhead weighing 19 kilograms. While the total weight of the missile is 64 kg.

Also last February, missiles fell near the US embassy in Iraq, and another on the Balad air base, in an attack that wounded an Iraqi employee working for an American company to maintain F-16 planes.

On February 26, an American bombing targeted the "Hezbollah Brigades", an Iraqi faction loyal to Iran, on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The US President, Joe Biden, said at the time that the US air strikes should be viewed by Iran as a warning.

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