al Asad
US soldiers inspect the site where an Iranian missile hit at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq, on January 13, 2020.
John Davison/Reuters
  • The US military released new footage of the Jan. 8, 2020 Iranian missile attack on US troops.
  • The video footage was shot by a drone and shows the missiles hammering Al Asad Air Base.
  • The US service members who were on the ground thought they were going to die.
  • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

The US has released previously-unseen video footage of the Iranian missile attack on US and Coalition forces in Iraq last year.

A drone recorded the attack as a barrage of Iranian short-range ballistic missiles carrying 1,000- to 2,000-pound munitions rained down on Al Asad Air Base on Jan. 8, 2020.

The never-before-seen video footage of the attack was obtained and released by 60 Minutes on Sunday.

US Central Command then released a longer, more detailed video on Monday.

Just days into 2020, President Donald Trump ordered the US military to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military officer and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander.

The Iranian general was killed in an airstrike outside Baghdad International Airport on Jan. 3, 2020. The airstrike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a Kata'ib Hezbollah commander. The Iran-backed militia group has carried out deadly attacks on US military and civilian personnel in Iraq.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliated on Jan. 8, launching more than a dozen ballistic missiles at US and Coalition forces at Al Asad Air Base and Irbil.

U.S. soldiers stand at the spot hit by Iranian bombing at Ain al-Asad air base, in Anbar, Iraq.
U.S. soldiers stand at the spot hit by Iranian bombing at Ain al-Asad air base, in Anbar, Iraq.
AP Photo/Qassim Abdul-Zahra

US troops who were on the ground thought they were going to die, harrowing testimonies from service members there revealed.

After receiving intelligence that an Iranian attack was imminent, Lt. Col. Staci Coleman, commander of the 443rd Air Expeditionary Squadron at Al Asad Air Base, had to decide which service members would evacuate and who would stay behind to defend the base.

"I was deciding who would live and would die," Coleman recalled in her written testimony on the event.

"I honestly thought anyone remaining behind would perish," she said. "I didn't believe anyone would survive a ballistic missile attack and it made me feel sick and helpless."

Maj. Alan Johnson, who was at Al Asad, told 60 Minutes that he received an intelligence assessment that Iran's "intention is to level the base and we may not survive."

Fearing the worst, he recorded a video for his family. In the heartbreaking video, he tearfully told his 6-year-old son: "Just know in your heart that I love you. Bye buddy."

No US troops were killed in the Iranian missile attack, but more than one hundred service members suffered traumatic brain injuries, combat wounds that Trump controversially asserted were "not very serious." A total of 29 troops who were wounded during the attack received Purple Hearts.

Damage to the military bases hosting US troops, specifically Al Asad Air Base, was severe in places. That no one was killed in the ballistic attack was a miracle. 

Damage at Al Asad air base in Iraq is seen in a satellite picture taken January 8, 2020
Damage at Al Asad air base in Iraq is seen in a satellite picture taken January 8, 2020
Planet/Handout via REUTERS

"These things have bursting radiuses of 50 to 100 feet, and that's just the shrapnel in the actual blast," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said of the Iranian missiles. He characterized the Iranian ballistic missiles fired at US troops as "very, very significant, serious weapons."

Read the original article on Business Insider