Iran International
A June 23 Iranian missile attack caused damage deep inside a US airbase in Qatar, the Pentagon said on Friday, confirming an Iran International report citing satellite imagery which indicated a cutting-edge communications hub within the facility was destroyed.
"One Iranian ballistic missile impacted Al Udeid Air Base June 23 while the remainder of the missiles were intercepted by U.S. and Qatari air defense systems," Department of Defense Spokesman Sean Parnell told Iran International in response to an emailed request for comment.
"The impact did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base. There were no injuries. Al Udeid Air Base remains fully operational and capable of conducting its mission, alongside our Qatari partners, to provide security and stability in the region," Parnell added.
The imagery obtained by Iran International provided the most concrete indication yet of physical harm to the Al Udeid Air Base, the biggest US military facility in the Middle East and the forward headquarters of US Central Command (CENTCOM).
Iran attacked Al Udeid in retaliation for US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites the previous day, a surprise operation which capped off a 12-day war between Iran and Israel which US President Donald Trump said "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program.
"US forces, alongside our Qatari partners, successfully defended against an Iranian ballistic missile attack targeting Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base near Doha, Qatar," CENTCOM said the day of the attack.
President Trump at the time dismissed the Iranian response as "very weak" in a post on Truth Social.
"13 (missiles) were knocked down, and 1 was ‘set free,’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction,” Trump added. “I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done."
The United States did not retaliate following the attack and Trump swiftly promulgated a ceasefire which remains in place.
Open-source satellite imagery of the sprawling base encompassing runways, roads dozens of structures shows one distinctive site toward the center of the facility: a white geodesic dome.
A June 24 satellite picture from geospatial analytics company Satellogic obtained by Iran International appeared to show the area reduced to a blackened smear.
No apparent damage appears visible elsewhere.
The site is likely a radome, or weatherproof enclosure, housing a roughly satellite dish-shaped modernization enterprise terminal (MET) whose installation at Al Udeid was described in a 2016 press release on the US Air Force's official website.
Costing $15 million, the MET "provides secure communication capabilities including voice, video and data services, linking service members in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility with military leaders around the world," the Air Force wrote.
The MET in Qatar was the first outside the United States and features anti-jamming technology, it added.
"Two US Army Patriot systems and several more operated by Qatar were responsible for defending the base," Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute, told Iran International. "From the moment the Iranian missiles were detected, they had just about two minutes to respond."
An Iranian drone, he added, could have formed an as-yet undisclosed part of the attack, Nadimi said. "It may have slipped through while the Patriot batteries were busy intercepting incoming missiles."
