Para ejecutar el ataque con misiles del 07Ene20 a la base a\u00e9rea estadounidense de Ain al-Asad en Irak, Ir\u00e1n us\u00f3 im\u00e1genes de sat\u00e9lite comerciales, que le permitieron monitorear la base,\u00a0 mientras se preparaba para lanzar m\u00e1s de una docena de misiles bal\u00edsticos contra las fuerzas estadounidenses y de la coalici\u00f3n estacionadas en ese lugar. El ataque masivo con misiles provoc\u00f3 severos da\u00f1os estructurales a la base, equipamiento y un helic\u00f3ptero. M\u00e1s de 100 personas tuvieron que ser atendidas por lesiones traum\u00e1ticas diversas. Gracias al trabajo de inteligencia previo realizado, que permiti\u00f3 alertar a las tropas sobre el inminente ataque, no se produjeron v\u00edctimas fatales.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Iran used commercial satellite images to monitor Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq as it prepared to launch more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. and coalition forces, 60 Minutes reported.<\/p>\n
That detail came more than a year after the night of the attack on Jan. 7, 2020. Iran said the barrage was \u201cfierce revenge\u201d for the assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed by the U.S. in a drone strike days earlier. The missile attack\u00a0damaged the base<\/a>, equipment and a helicopter, and\u00a0110 people had to be treated for traumatic brain injuries<\/a>. But no one was killed, thanks in part to early intelligence that an attack was imminent and a\u00a0critical early warning from the Space Force\u2019s missile warning satellite operators<\/a>.<\/p>\n The\u00a060 Minutes report<\/a>\u00a0revealed new details about the timing of the evacuation, and how Iran tried to use commercially available satellite imagery to monitor the base.<\/p>\n The report said that Iran purchased satellite images of the base on the day of the attack, and U.S. Central Command was aware of it. According to CBS News national security correspondent David Martin, USCENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie timed the evacuation of al-Asad Air Base around Iran\u2019s purchase of satellite imagery of the base.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go too early, you risk the problem that the enemy will see what you have done and adjust his plans,\u201d McKenzie told the reporter.<\/p>\n McKenzie waited until Iran had purchased its last satellite image of the day before evacuating the base, ensuring that Iran was acting on out-of-date images, he said in the interview.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would have seen airplanes on the ground and people working,\u201d said McKenzie. \u201cI think they expected to destroy a number of U.S. aircraft and to kill a number of U.S. service members.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, USCENTCOM told C4ISRNET that it \u201cdoes assess that Iran uses commercial satellite imagery from a variety of sources.\u201d It declined to answer further questions.<\/p>\n It is not clear which satellite imagery provider Iran purchased the images from.<\/p>\n The U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense buy commercial satellite imagery for a number of different uses. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency purchases unclassified commercial images to share with other government organizations, while the National Reconnaissance Office is using study contracts to determine what\u00a0commercial imagery it will purchase for the intelligence community<\/a>. The military is also showing increased interest in the growing commercial satellite imagery market, signing agreements with various companies for images and real-time analytics. In September, the U.S. Army experimented with using\u00a0commercial imagery for beyond-line-of-sight targeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also not clear how the U.S. military knew Iran was purchasing the images, or how it knew when images of al-Asad Air Base were purchased.<\/p>\n