10 Americans injured in Iranian attack on Saudi air base

Ten U.S. service members were injured in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, according to multiple U.S. officials.

The attack consisted of Iranian missiles and drones, sources told CBS News.

Two of the Americans were very seriously injured, sources said. Eight were seriously injured, which is a different category of injury under the military’s classification system.

More than 300 American service members have been wounded in action as part of the U.S.’s war with Iran, most of whom have returned to duty, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson said Friday. 

Since the war began, 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
One was wounded in an earlier attack on Prince Sultan Air Base and later died from his injuries, and six were killed in an Iranian strike on a U.S. facility in Kuwait hours after the war began. Another six were killed in a crash of a U.S. refueling aircraft over Iraq.

Over the last four weeks, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes against U.S.-allied Gulf states, including facilities with an American military presence like Prince Sultan Air Base. Located about 60 miles from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the base is operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force and is used by the U.S. Air Force’s 378th Air Expeditionary Wing.

A person familiar with the matter told CBS News that Prince Sultan Air Base was also hit in a separate attack earlier this week, injuring 14 people. The person did not share the nationalities of those injured. A U.S. official said that attack was less grave than the one at the end of the week.

The most recent attack in Saudi Arabia could highlight a shortage of missile interceptors in the region as the U.S.-Iran war nears the one-month mark. Concerns that Arab states are running dangerously low on intercepters have swirled for weeks, with some U.S.-allied countries warning the White House earlier this month that they’re being forced to chose which objects to blow up and which not to, CBS News has previously reported.