AIN AL-ASAD BASE, Iraq: US troops were clearing rubble and debris on Monday from a military base housing American soldiers in western Iraq, days after it was struck by Iranian ballistic missiles.
The Ain Al-Asad air base in Iraq’s western Anbar province is a sprawling complex about 180 kilometers west of Baghdad and houses about 1,500 members of the US military and the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group.
It was struck by a barrage of Iranian missiles on Wednesday, in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose killing raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
An Associated Press crew touring the Ain Al-Asad base Monday saw large craters in the ground and damaged military trailers as well as forklifts lifting rubble and loading it onto trucks from a large area the size of a football stadium.
The US said no American soldiers were killed or wounded in the Iranian attack.
Ain Al-Asad air base was first used by American forces after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and later saw American troops stationed there amid the fight against the Daesh group in Iraq and Syria.
Trump visited the sprawling Ain Al-Asad air base in December 2018, making his first presidential visit to troops in the region. Vice President Mike Pence also has visited the base.
US troops clear rubble from Iraq base days after Iran strike
https://arab.news/mm7jz
US troops clear rubble from Iraq base days after Iran strike
- The Ain Al-Asad air base in Iraq’s western Anbar province is a sprawling complex about 180 kilometers west of Baghdad
- Ain Al-Asad air base was first used by American forces after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein
Syria opens aid corridor to Kurdish-majority town
- The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani, filled with displaced people, as a UN convoy carrying lifesaving aid headed there.
The aid came as the Defense Ministry announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire across all fronts of Syrian Arab Army operations, effective at 11 p.m. on Jan. 24.
The ministry said the ceasefire extension comes in support of the US operation to transfer Daesh detainees from prisons in Syria to Iraq.
The Operations Command of the Syrian Arab Army warned the Syrian Democratic Forces and PKK militias against continuing their violations and provocations.
It also announced the opening of two humanitarian corridors, one to Kobani and another in nearby Hasakah province, to allow “the entry of aid.”
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the UN’s refugee agency in Syria, said on X that “thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government ... a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel” departed for Kobani “to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities.”
The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north.
Kobani, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by Daesh in 2015, became a symbol of their first major victory against the terrorists.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said it had begun transporting crude oil from the Jbessa oil field in eastern Hasakah province to the Baniyas refinery on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The move follows the arrival of the first shipment of crude oil from Deir Ezzor fields to storage facilities in Baniyas, where it will be processed.
