U.S. warplanes strike three Iranian nuclear sites in sweeping attack
The bombing is a major escalation by President Donald Trump, tethering the United States to a conflict with no clear end in sight.
While the U.S. and Iran have fought deadly proxy battles for nearly a half-century in Lebanon, Yemen, the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere, Trump’s action was the first significant U.S. military strike on Iranian soil since the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Trump’s decision to enter the conflict raises immediate questions about how Iran or its proxies may react, even as scores of Israeli strikes have left Iranian military capabilities diminished. Iran has threatened to retaliate against U.S. troops, tens of thousands of whom are deployed throughout the Middle East in countries such as Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
-An extract from Dan Lamothe, Warren P. Strobel and Karen DeYoung’s reporting for the Washington Post
Al-Asad Air Base, an Iraqi installation 150 miles west of Baghdad that is operated jointly by the Iraqi and U.S. air forces, houses thousands of American troops, the largest U.S. deployment in the country.
Iran and its proxies have in recent years attacked it repeatedly.
[Map and reporting from the Washington Post]