Military officials question fortifications at site where U.S. troops were killed in Iranian strike

The first American soldiers to die in the US-Israeli war against Iran were killed in an apparent Iranian drone attack on a makeshift office in Kuwait, three U.S. military officials with direct knowledge of the Iranian attack told CBS News.

At least six Americans were killed in a strike against a tactical operations center in Kuwait’s Shuaiba port, one of several U.S. allied countries in the Persian Gulf region that have faced intense Iranian missile and drone attacks since the United States and Israel began striking Iran early Saturday. US Central Command publicly confirmed the deaths.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the deadly strike was caused by a powerful Iranian weapon that penetrated both the air defenses and fortifications of the operations center.

“You have air defenses, and a lot of things come in, and you hit most of them,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon news conference. “Every once in a while you might get one, unfortunately, we call it a squirter, that squirts its way through. And in this particular case, it happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but they’re powerful weapons.”

But the three U.S. military officials questioned the assertion that the building was sufficiently fortified. They told CBS News the operations center was a triple-wide trailer converted into office space — a common setup at U.S. bases overseas.

The caravan’s only fortifications were T-walls, which are 12-foot-high reinforced concrete barriers used to protect military personnel from explosions, rocket attacks and shrapnel, military officials said.

But the T-walls were unable to protect the facility from an airstrike. Two officials told CBS News the strike appeared to have hit dead center at the top of the building.

Three officials also told CBS News, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, that before the attack there were discussions on the ground about whether the tactical operations center in question should not have been used because it concentrated too many U.S. troops in a location that was not defensible.

Preliminary battle damage assessments suggest the operations center in Kuwait was attacked by a one-way drone, according to three U.S. military officials with direct knowledge of the Iranian attack. Iran commonly uses Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones.

The fire ravaged buildings, making it difficult to recover bodies immediately after the strike, officials told CBS News.

Two of the three sources told CBS News they did not recall hearing the warning sirens that are commonly associated with counter-battery systems designed to detect incoming enemy munitions that ultimately killed the service members. They also said the warning siren had been going all week before the attack on the tactical operations center, but that in previous incidents, some drones were already inside the base before the siren sounded.

Additionally, two sources said there was no U.S. counter-rocket, artillery and mortar system in Shuaiba port that could be used to shoot down incoming drones or other lethal munitions. Kuwait had interceptors nearby, but it is unclear whether these were used.

Requests were made for more capabilities to defeat incoming drones, but those additional resources never arrived, both sources said. A source told CBS News: “We had virtually no drone neutralization capability. »

“I’m sorry for their families’ losses,” one of the sources told CBS News. “They were nice people who did what their nation asked of them.”

CNN first reported on the six soldiers killed at the Shuaiba port and the fact that they had apparently not been warned in advance. CBS News is the first to report the type of munitions that hit the operations center, and that some U.S. troops believe the center’s defenses were inadequate and perhaps the established operations center should not have been used at all.

Asked for comment, the Pentagon referred CBS News to previous statements from U.S. Central Command on the fallen service members.

In addition to the six killed in Kuwait, at least 18 service members were seriously injured Monday morning during the combat operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson told CBS News.

Hegseth called the slain service members “America’s absolute finest.”

“May we continue the rest of this operation in a way that honors them,” he said.