According to US officials, the number of US troops suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBI) after an Iranian attack on a US base in Iraq in January has risen to 109. The figure is a significant increase from the 64 injured service members previously reported by the Pentagon.
President Donald Trump initially said no Americans were injured in the raid. The attack on 8 January came amid tensions over the US killing of an Iranian general. Nearly 70% of the injured service members have returned to their duties, the Pentagon added in its statement.
The number of injuries has been steadily increasing since the Pentagon began releasing data on the injuries about a week after the Jan. 8 attack at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq. Pentagon officials have warned that the number would continue to change.
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it’s possible, in some cases, that symptoms of TBI from the Iranian missile attack won’t become apparent for a year or two. He said the Army is in the early stages of diagnosis and therapy for the troops.
“They landed in a way that didn’t hit anybody,” Mr Trump said in a statement. “And so when they came in and told me that nobody was killed, I was impressed by that and, you know, I stopped something that would have been very devastating for them,” he said, without specifying what had been “stopped”.
Last month President Trump downplayed the significance of traumatic brain injuries when asked about the impact of the attack.
“I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things, but I would say, and I can report, it’s not very serious,” he said. When asked about possible TBIs he said: “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen.”
TBIs are common in warzones, according to the US military.The most common cause of a TBI for deployed soldiers is an explosive blast, writes the US Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
According to the US government, more than 400,000 troops have been diagnosed with TBI’s since 2000.
