Iranian Attack

From the BBC:

“Iran attack: US troops targeted with ballistic missiles”

Two airbases housing US troops in Iraq have been hit by more than a dozen ballistic missiles, according to the US Department of Defence. Iranian state TV says the attack is a retaliation after the country's top commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad, on the orders of US President Donald Trump. The Pentagon says two sites were attacked, in Irbil and Al Asad. It is unclear if there have been any casualties.  "The president has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team," White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the attack was in retaliation for the death of Soleimani on Friday. "We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted," it said via a statement carried by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later issued a statement on Twitter, claiming the attack was self-defence and denied seeking to escalate the situation into war. 

What happened?

 Two Iraqi bases housing US and coalition troops were attacked - one at Al Asad and one in Irbil. Tehran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from Iranian territories at about 1:30am local time (10.30pm GMT), just hours after the burial of Soleimani.  The Al-Asad airbase - located in the Anbar province of western Iraq - was hit by at least six missiles. Earlier in the day, President Trump said a US withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be the worst thing for the country. His comments came in the wake of a letter, which the US military said had been sent in error, to Iraq's prime minister, apparently agreeing to a request by Iraqi MPs to pull troops out.  The US has around 5,000 troops in Iraq.  The UK foreign office told the BBC: "We are urgently working to establish the facts on the ground. Our first priority is the security of British personnel." The UK has put the Royal Navy and military helicopters on standby amid rising tensions in the Middle East, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said earlier.

^ I don’t know if any Americans were killed or wounded in the attacks, but I have heard there were Iraqi casualties. If that’s the case then Iraq really does need the US to stay in their country. The US attacked an Iranian terrorist on Iraqi soil, but Iran attacked Iraqis on Iraqi soil (just like they did in the Iran-Iraq War.) Iraq also needs help to make sure ISIS doesn’t regain Iraqi territory and kill more Iraqis. The US helped Iraq fight ISIS while Iran did not. Also the downing of the Ukrainian airplane in Tehran right now seems suspect. ^

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51028954