New images obtained by CBS News reveal extensive damage to U.S. military aircraft, vehicles and buildings following Iranian missile and drone strikes on American bases across the Middle East.
The photographs were provided to the network by active-duty U.S. service members who asked to remain anonymous. “This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public,” one deployed service member told CBS News. “We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”
(Photo: CBS)
The images document damage from Iranian missile and drone attacks at several U.S. positions in the region.
One of the most striking photographs was taken at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. It shows a direct hit on the rear section of a U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry, a four-engine airborne warning and control aircraft.
The aircraft’s tail is separated from its charred fuselage. The E-3, distinguished by the large rotating radar dome above its fuselage, is used for airborne surveillance, command and control and monitoring activity across large areas of airspace.
Other photographs from Prince Sultan show heavily damaged buildings and troop living quarters.
Some of the damaged structures stand alongside concrete barriers known as T-walls that appear to have remained intact. Such barriers have long been used to provide protection against threats including mortar fire and explosions, but the images underscore their limitations against aerial attacks involving missiles and drones.
Additional images were taken at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, a major staging area for U.S. Army ground forces in the Middle East.
Armored vehicle destroyed in an Iranian strike
(Photo: CBS)
(Photo: CBS)
There, photographs show damage to several armored vehicles as well as military aircraft and other equipment.
The new photographs add a visual dimension to the scale of losses described this week in the first inspector general report to Congress on the U.S. conflict with Iran.
According to the report cited by CBS, equipment losses were valued at as much as $3.7 billion and included nearly 60 aircraft. The report said U.S. Central Command recorded Iranian attacks against American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.
The figures cover broader equipment losses connected to the conflict and should not be read as a valuation of the damage shown in the newly released photographs alone.
CBS has also reported damage to U.S. aircraft at other bases during the fighting. At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, for example, sources told the network that an A-10 Thunderbolt lost a wing in an Iranian strike while roughly eight F-15 fighter jets sustained lighter damage and were returned to service.
For the service member who spoke to CBS, however, the newly released photographs point to a broader concern about the vulnerability of U.S. positions in the region.
“These are not ‘squirters’ getting through,” the service member said, referring to terminology previously used for isolated incoming threats that penetrate defenses. “We’re not defending these bases. We’re just watching them get destroyed.”