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Iran has launched missile attacks on US

January 08, 2020 03:54 PM

Iran has launched missile attacks on US targets in Iraq in response to the US assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani last week. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran had taken what it considered to be proportionate measures and did not seek an escalation of war.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump tweeted "all is well!" shortly after the missile attacks in the early hours of Wednesday, adding that an assessment of casualties and damage from the attacks was under way.

Here is what we know so far. At about 1:30am local time on Wednesday (22:30 GMT on Tuesday), Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from its territory against at least two Iraqi facilities hosting US-led coalition personnel, the US military said.

The missiles hit two bases: Ain al-Asad in Anbar province and a facility in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The Iraqi military said in a statement that 22 missiles were launched between 1:45am and 2:15am on Wednesday (22:45 GMT and 23:15 GMT on Tuesday).

It said two of the 17 missiles striking Ain al-Asad base did not go off. The five on Erbil all targeted coalition headquarters. No casualties have been officially confirmed so far. The Iraqi military said there were no casualties among its forces.

Germany, Poland, Norway and Denmark also said that none of its soldiers stationed in Iraq was wounded or killed, according to reports.  Iranian state television claimed that at least 80 "American terrorists" were killed in attacks involving 15 missiles, adding that none of the missiles was intercepted.

The claim could not be independently verified and the state television did not provide evidence of how it obtained that information.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed they fired the missiles in retaliation for last week's killing of Soleimani, according to a statement on state media.

US officials have said Soleimani was killed because of intelligence indicating forces under his command planned attacks on US targets in the region. But they have not provided evidence.

A war of words between US and Iran had been waging since Soleimani's assassination, and Tehran had pledged a "harsh response" to avenge his death. 

US President Donald Trump threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites "very hard" if Iran attacked US citizens or assets. In a speech in Tehran after the attack, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "The corrupt presence of the US in the region should come to an end", calling the missile attack a "slap in the face" of the US.

Trump said in his tweet that he would make a statement on Wednesday morning. Amid the rising tension, governments around the world have called for a return to diplomacy.

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