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Photographs provided by active-duty US service members depict destruction at American installations across the Middle East that exceeds previous public accounts from officials. The images, obtained by CBS News, include a Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia with its tail severed from a charred fuselage after a direct hit. A CBS News report noted that the aircraft’s rotating radar dome, essential for airborne intelligence, was rendered unusable in the strike.
Similar damage appears at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, a key staging area for US Army forces, where the photos show flattened trailers, destroyed armored vehicles and hollowed-out buildings standing beside ineffective concrete barriers. Images from nearby Camp Arifjan reveal a four-storey building with major structural harm, according to the CBS News review of the undated pictures. The visuals were shared by personnel citing restrictions on public disclosure of such information, CBS News reported.
A Defense Department inspector general report released this week found that Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan. The assessment placed total equipment losses as high as 3.7 billion dollars, encompassing nearly 60 aircraft, according to the document submitted to Congress. US Central Command provided the underlying data on the strikes and losses in response to the inspector general’s inquiry.
Analysis by The Washington Post of satellite imagery verified that at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment were damaged or destroyed at 15 US military sites, a figure substantially higher than prior Pentagon statements. The New York Times separately identified at least 17 damaged US installations using commercial satellite imagery, social media videos and statements from US and Iranian officials. A strike on Shuaiba port in Kuwait on March 1 killed six American service members when a drone hit a personnel housing structure, The New York Times visual investigation showed.
The newly published photos add detail to the inspector general’s findings on losses through June 30, a period that preceded further strikes after the breakdown of a ceasefire in July, according to The New York Times reporting. Additional damage has been documented at sites including Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where an A-10 Thunderbolt lost a wing and multiple F-15 jets sustained harm, CBS News sources stated. The Pentagon has not commented on the specific images or updated its public assessment of the destruction.
