TEHRAN - Tens of U.S. soldiers killed or wounded in Iran's missile attacks on the U.S. airbase in western Iraq were transferred to Israel and Jordan, the commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC said on Thursday, noting that it was only “the starting point of a great operation,” which will increase to cover the entire region.

"We were not after killing anyone although tens of U.S. troops have likely been killed and wounded and transferred to Israel and Jordan on 9 sorties of C-130 flights," Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated.

Iran’s missile attacks on the Ain Al-Assad airbase housing American troops on Wednesday morning were in response to the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3. Iran’s senior political and military figures had vowed “harsh revenge” for the martyrdom of General Soleimani.

“We did not aim to kill (anybody)…we intended to hit the enemy’s military machine,” Hajizadeh said.

Hajizadeh added had Iran intended to kill the American forces, it could have planned high casualty operations to kill 500 U.S. servicemen in the first step and 4,000 to 5,000 others in the second and third steps within 48 hours.

“We could mount the operation in a way that 500 would be killed in the first step and, if they responded, in the second and third steps, their casualties would have reached 4,000 to 5,000,” Hajizadeh asserted.

General Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. air raid near the Baghdad international airport on the morning of January 3. It was an act of war against Iran.

Soleimani had gone to Baghdad to deliver a message to the Iraqi prime minister who was acting as intermediary to deescalate tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. airstrike also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) and some other forces of the PMU along with their guests.

Ain Al-Assad, an airbase in al Anbar province, is the main and the largest U.S. airbase in Iraq.

This is the first direct attack on the U.S. army since the Second World War.

IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.

The missile attack operation was named after “Martyr Soleimani”.

“We fired 13 missiles at the base in Iraq, although we had prepared several hundred missiles for launching,” Tasnim quoted Hajizadeh as saying.

A few hours after Iran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at the U.S. military base, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. was given a “slap” in the face and that the U.S. “corruptive presence” in the region must come to an end.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said attacks on Ain Al-Assad was in accordance to the rules of the UN Charter, reminding that Iran hit the airbase that had been used as the launchpad for assassinating General Soleimani.

"Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting [the] base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens and senior officials were launched," Zarif wrote on his tweeter page on Wednesday morning. 

MJ/PA