Iranian strike of Qatar air base likely hit US’ communication facility
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Representational.
Dubai: An Iranian attack on an air base in Qatar key to the US military likely hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analysed Friday by The Associated Press show.
The US military and Qatar did not immediately respond to requests for comment over the damage, which so far has not been publicly acknowledged. The Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, Qatar's capital, on June 23 came as a response to the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Tehran — and provided the Islamic Republic with a way to retaliate that quickly led to a ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
The Iranian attack otherwise did little damage — likely due to the fact that the US evacuated its aircraft from the base home to the forward headquarters of the US military's Central Command ahead of the attack.
Trump also has said Iran signalled when and how it would retaliate, allowing American and Qatari air defence to be ready for the attack, which briefly disrupted air travel in the Middle East but otherwise didn't tip over into the regional war long feared by analysts.
Images show burn marks and a dome gone after the attack. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC show the geodesic dome visible at the Al Udeid Air Base on the morning of June 23, just hours before the attack. The US Air Force's 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, which operates out of the base, in 2016 announced the installation of the USD 15 million piece of equipment, known as a modernised enterprise terminal. Photos show a satellite dish inside of the dome, known as a radome.
Images taken on June 25 and every day subsequently show that the dome is gone, with some damage visible on a nearby building. The rest of the base appears largely untouched in the images.
It's possible a fragment or something else struck the dome, but given the destruction of the dome, it was likely an Iranian attack, possibly with a bomb-carrying drone, given the limited visible damage to surrounding structures.
