An Iranian attack on an air base in Qatar that's key to the US military hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analyzed Friday by The Associated Press show.
Hours after the publication of this AP report, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell acknowledged that an Iranian ballistic missile had hit the dome. Qatar did not respond to requests for comment about the damage.
The Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, Qatar's capital, on June 23 came as a response to the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran — and provided Iran a way to retaliate that quickly led to a ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
The Iranian attack otherwise did little damage — likely because of the fact that the US evacuated its aircraft from the base, which is home to the forward headquarters of the US military's Central Command, before the attack.
Trump also has said that Iran signaled when and how it would retaliate, allowing American and Qatari air defense to be ready for the attack, which briefly disrupted air travel in the Middle East, but otherwise didn't tip over into the regional war long feared by analysts.
Images show burn marks, dome gone after attack
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC show the geodesic dome visible at the Al Udeid Air Base on the morning of June 23, just hours before the attack.
The US Air Force's 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, which operates out of the base, announced in 2016 the installation of the $15 million piece of equipment, known as a modernized enterprise terminal. Photos show a satellite dish inside of the dome, known as a radome.
Images taken June 25 and every day subsequently show the dome is gone, with some damage visible on a nearby building. The rest of the base appears largely untouched in the images.
