Spokesman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said Washington's awe was damaged by Iran's retaliatory missile attacks on the US base in Iraq. RNA - "The important point in the missile attack against Ein al-Assad was shattering the hollow awe of the Americans and they were humiliated in the eyes of the world militaries," General Sharif said, addressing a ceremony in the Northeastern city of Damqan on Monday.
He noted that for 70 years no one had dared to launch a cross border attack on the US bases before the missile strike on Ein Al-Assad, and added that the IRGC's slap shattered their self-claimed political, economic and military empire.
General Sharif said although the objective of the IRGC attack on the US base that came in retaliation for the assassination of IRGC Qods Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani was not killing the American soldiers, the number of the US casualties has been so high that has been kept partly cofidential.
Lieutenant General Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3.
The airstrike also martyred Deputy Commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The two were martyred in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.
Five Iranian and five Iraqi militaries were martyred by missiles fired by the US drone at Baghdad International Airport.
On January 8, the IRGC Aerospace Force started heavy ballistic missile attacks on US Ein Al-Assad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a US operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the US assassination of General Soleimani.
Ein Al-Assad is an airbase with a 4km runway at 188m altitude from sea levels, which is the main and the largest US airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the radar systems and missile defense shields in Ein Al-Assad failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. Unofficial reports said the US army's central radar systems at Ein Al-Assad had been jammed by electronic warfare.
The second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the second leg of "Martyr Soleimani" reprisal operation.
Iraq said the attacks had not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these two bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ein Al-Assad to everyone, including the Iraqi army.
It was the first direct attack on the US army ever since world war two.
The IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.
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