Iran hit at least 3 bases hosting US assets in latest strikes: Visual analysis
Even as President Donald Trump boasts the U.S. "demolished" the Iranian military, Iran is continuing to flex its muscles having struck and damaged at least three American bases in the Middle East since the resumption of hostilities with the U.S. in early July, an ABC News analysis found.
An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and video suggests that bases in Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar sustained damage in Iranian-claimed missile and drone strikes. A former United Nations base camp and an industrial area, both in Kuwait, have also been struck.
While the operational damage appears to be limited from this set of strikes, they still demonstrate that the U.S. has "failed to successfully attrit their forces to the extent where they can no longer do these types of attacks," according to Sam Lair, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
CENTCOM declined to comment on the reported strikes.
Ken Pollack, the vice president for policy at the Middle East Institute and a former CIA military analyst, told ABC News that the Iranians are "looking for targets that they know they can hit" and "control escalation."
He pointed to their targeting of military bases over civilian targets, noting they do not run as great a risk of retaliation from the U.S. And since Iranians began testing American and Gulf defenses at the start of the conflict in late February, Pollack said they may have "identified chinks in our armor."
Satellite imagery from July 12 showed apparent damage to a warehouse building in the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain, a "favorite site for the Iranians to hit since the war broke out," Lair told ABC News.
Lair confirmed there appears to be a hole in a warehouse roof.
"I think it's not so much the warehouse as what the site represents," Lair said, adding it's "symbolically important" and shows that "Iranians are able to hold at threat American targets."
On Monday, Trump said the U.S. is "knocking out all of [Iran's] offensive capability." He also reinstated a naval blockade on commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
"It's important to remember that for the Iranians, they don't need to shut down all of the trade in the Strait of Hormuz," Pollack said. "They don't need to destroy every city in the Arabian Peninsula. All they need to do is to be able to threaten to do so."
He called the periodic attacks on the Gulf states "absolutely ruinous to the futures that they charted out for themselves – and that's what Iran's banking on."
Satellite imagery from July 12 also shows the southern part of a building at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar destroyed.
According to Lair, the damage "probably makes it a little bit more difficult to sustain flight operations out of Al-Udeid."
He described the site as "very accessible" and "not very well-defended," but he did add that, "a lot of the most sensitive material at the base was removed, along with many of the personnel, before the war started at the end of February, and I'm not sure how much has been returned."
"You may as well try to further degrade the capabilities of that base, especially since it's one of the largest hubs in CENTCOM," Lair said, but cautioned that the "operational impact of those strikes is unclear."
Taken together, the images show that Iran remains capable of striking "a wide range of targets of the region," Lair said, adding that while "it's not one for one … it kind of suggests that the Iranians are still able to hold the Strait at risk, and are willing to do so, despite the long-running U.S. air campaign."
"It reminds everyone in the Gulf that they are still vulnerable to Iranian attacks," Lair said. "It's a very uncomfortable reality."
