Over 100 US troops suffered brain injury in Iran attack
More than 100 US troops sustained “mild” traumatic brain injury, much more than originally announced, when Iran launched missiles at their base in Iraq last month, the Department of Defense said on Monday.
“As of today, 109 US service members are diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI, a rise of 45 since the previous report,” the Pentagon said during a statement.
Of them, 76 have returned to duty while most of the remainder are still undergoing evaluation and treatment.
President Donald Trump had initially said that no Americans were injured within the strike on the Ain al-Asad base in western Iraq on the night of Jan 7-8, although authorities later reported that 11 troops were injured.
Iran fired ballistic missiles at the bottom to retaliate for the Jan 3 US drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani while he was in Baghdad.
Trump was understood to downplay the impact on US troops to assist ratchet tensions between the 2 countries, amid concerns that a full war could escape .
It was only every week later that reports surfaced that US troops had experienced concussions and other brain injuries.
But the US leader then dismissed the reported injuries as “headaches” and “not very serious.”
“We are grateful to the efforts of our medical professionals who have worked diligently to make sure the acceptable level of look after our service members, which has enabled nearly 70 per cent of these diagnosed to return to duty,” said Pentagon press secretary Alyssa Farah during a statement Monday.
“We must still address physical and psychological state together,” she said. - AFP
