The January 8 strike on US military bases in Iraq was “the starting point of a great operation” against the United States across the region, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said during a press conference on January 9.
The strikes were not meant to cause fatalities. We intended to deliver a blow to the enemy’s military machine,” Brigadier General Hajizadeh said.
The commander of IRGC’s Aerospace Division stated that the IRGC fired 13 missiles at the US bases in IRaq, but had actually prepared several hundred for launch.
According to them, if there was the goal to cause casualties, Iran would target the facilities used to accommodate the US forces or their deployment centers.
“We were able to plan the operation in a way to kill 500 [US forces] in the first stage and if they responded [to our strike], they would have lost 4,000-5,000 [troops] in the second and third stages.”
The IRGC top officer said that US forces completely failed to deliver any response to the strike, although they were on full alert and 12 unmanned aircraft in addition to a number of piloted ones were on surveillance mission above the Ain al-Assad base targeted by the IRGC strike.