TEHRAN - Aerial footages have proved that a few hours after Iran’s missile attack on the U.S. Ein Al Assad airbase in western Iraq on January 8, a military plane managed to transfer a number of wounded service members from the Baghdad airport to Germany and later to the U.S., Nour News reported. 

In early hours of January 8, the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired several missiles at Ein al-Assad airbase.  The missile attacks were in retaliation to the U.S. assassination of IRGC Quds Force chief Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani on January 3 near the Baghdad international airport.

The Ein al-Assad airbase was a strategic site for the U.S. which was used to support drone attacks.

The sources said on January 3 that as many as 20 critical points in the base were hit by 15 missiles and a significant number of UAVs and helicopters were destroyed

Nour News report said, “The military plane C-17 codenamed BANDGE (which is used for carrying casualties) left Germany and landed in the Baghdad international airport at 11:20 a.m. (Iraqi time) on January 8. 

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and his party’s ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, called on Trump to apologize for belittling the injuries suffered by the troops.The military plane left the Baghdad airport an hour later for Germany, the source added. 

A few hours later, the C-17 plane landed in an airport in Germany and then left Germany for the Springs Military Camp in Maryland State.  

Shortly after Iran’s missile attack, the U.S. military officials claimed that the attack had left no casualties, but nine days later they said that a sum of 11 soldiers were sent to Germany for treatment. 

Later, the Pentagon acknowledged that the total number of the wounded soldiers had reached 34 that 8 of them were sent to the U.S. due to critical health condition.  

According to New York Times, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday that 34 service members had traumatic brain injuries from Iranian airstrikes, contradicting President Trump’s dismissal of injuries among American troops last week.

A Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, told a news conference that eight of the affected service members have returned to the United States from an American military hospital in Germany.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump dismissed concussion symptoms felt by the troops as “not very serious,” even as the Pentagon acknowledged that a number of American service members were being studied for possible traumatic brain injury caused by the attack.

“I heard they had headaches,” Trump said at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland. “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen.”

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and his party’s ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, called on Trump to apologize for belittling the injuries suffered by the troops.

“It’s plain wrong for President Trump to diminish their wounds,” Mr. Reed, who served as an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, said in a statement Friday. “He may not have meant to disrespect them, but President Trump’s comments were an insult to our troops. He owes them an apology.”

The New York Times quoted the military officials as saying that of the 34 service members who were told they have traumatic brain injuries, 17 were flown by medical evacuation aircraft to Germany. Nine remain in the military hospital there, while the others were flown to the United States.

One person was taken by medevac to Kuwait. Sixteen service members were treated for traumatic brain injury in Iraq and have returned to duty, officials said.

MJ/PA