These Feb. 17 photos show the aftermath of Monday's militia rocket attack on the U.S. military base at Erbil, Iraq, that destroyed facilities, killed one civilian contractor, and injured others. KATIE BO WILLIAMS / DEFENSE ONE
Monday night's attack caught U.S. personnel in their bunks and destroyed contractor living facilities.
ERBIL, Iraq — The rockets that struck U.S. forces at a base in Erbil on Monday night destroyed a contractor living facility, killing one — U.S.-employed but not a citizen — and wounding four others, some American.
"You can see the mangle of bunks inside. Contractors here are shook up and sad," said Katie Bo Williams, posting on Twitter several photos of the damaged facilities.
Fourteen rockets fell on the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq, in a rare attack on the usually tranquil city claimed by an Iranian-supported militia group called Saraya Awliya al-Dam. Williams' photos of the U.S. base, located on the far end of the city's international airport, show tented structures completely burned to their metal skeletons, revealing blackened tables and bunks amid signs of a normal life shattered.
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WNU Editor: Only one person was killed. But looking at these photos it could have been far worse.
1 comment:
"On Tuesday, Marotto said the civilian contractor who was killed was not American.
According to initial reports, four of the injured contractors are American citizens, a defense official told CNN." - CNN
So the deceased is from what country.
People were caught in their bunks. So apparently warning failed. We still do not know the what failure looks like, because we do not know what the rocket flight path looks like.
There are pictures of a destroyed building but no pictures of bomb shelters. We do not know how many there are or distribution. At this point we probably should not. I have seen living, work, and transit areas double wide sandbagged up to 6 feet in height in addition to HESCO barriers. There was not top protection. Form the picture it does not appear than sandbagging would have helped most people. There is no crater? Airburst?
Living in a Conex box with 2 layers of sandbags on top seems like a really good idea about now. There might be a glut of Conex boxes laying around and people actually build out CONEX box into homes in the US. So it is not like a new idea.
I look for the Iranians to do it again before the end of the year, if we do not do anything.
Hitting their navy won't really help. Take out a destroyer and they will rely more on small boats and swarm tactics. It would be hard to defend in the UN. I think it would be better to use a cyber attack and cost them 10 to 100 billion in damage to their nuke program by bricking stuff. They could replace it. It would slow them, but replacing it would really put a strain on their budget. It would hurt. They would have to give something up like aid to Hamas.
I figurer the Iranians to temporarily defund Hamas before the Houthis. The Houthi project might bear fruit about now.
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