NBC News reported that the Pentagon spokesperson revealed that as many as thirty-four US military personnel suffered concussions and brain injuries following Iranian missile attacks on Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq earlier this month.
Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi airbases on January 8 in retaliation for the US killing of the influential Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Jonathan Hoffman, spokesman for the Pentagon, he confirmed that eight Americans who were there during the attack were transported to a hospital in Germany and then returned to the United States, where they will receive treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center. Nine others are still in Germany. Seventeen others who reported concussion and head trauma are back on active duty in Iraq. No one was killed in the attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, Hoffman said.
Trump had downplayed the severity of those injuries at a press conference last Wednesday after the Pentagon admitted that US troops had suffered an unspecified number of injuries as a result of Iranian missile strikes.
"I heard they had a headache"He said Trump to journalists from Davos, Switzerland. "I can say that the injuries sustained are not very serious. No, I don't consider them very serious injuries compared to other injuries I've seenTrump said. "I have seen what Iran has done with its missiles along the road to our troops. I have seen people with no legs and no arms. I have seen people who have been horribly injured in that war zone".
Pentagon spokesman Hoffman also wanted to clarify who the Diesa Department is “Engaged in the provision of programs and services aimed at bringing to the best possible result assistance to the American military who suffer this type of injury".