President Trump announced Monday that Iran and Israel had agreed to a “total” ceasefire hours after the embattled Islamic republic launched an ineffectual missile attack against a key American military base in Qatar.
The Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, was repelled by missile defense batteries, and there were no casualties, the Pentagon said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the assault minutes after witnesses reported seeing and hearing explosions in the skies over Qatar.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. had advance warning of the assault and suggested that the “very weak” Iranian aggression was mostly for show.
Iran was widely expected to retaliate after U.S. airstrikes Saturday targeted three of the country’s key nuclear facilities. U.S. air bases in the Middle East were expected to be the most likely targets.
However, Iran signaled a desire to de-escalate the tense military standoff with the U.S. In a statement after the failed attack, the Supreme National Security Council, which answers directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the attack did not target civilians nor “pose any threat to our friendly and brotherly country, Qatar, and its noble people.”
The statement said the number of missiles launched by Iran was equal to the number of bombs the U.S. dropped Saturday. That U.S. operation targeted Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.
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Analysts said the language indicated that Tehran was casting the Al Udeid attack as a proportional response, or a way to save face. A few hours later, Mr. Trump had a ceasefire deal.
The ceasefire will begin at approximately midnight Tuesday eastern time, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social. He added that it would bring an “Official END” to the war.
Mr. Trump predicted the development in a Truth Social post.
“Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired — 13 were knocked down, and 1 was ‘set free,’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction,” the president said. “I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.”
A U.S. defense official confirmed that no one was injured in the attack, which involved Iranian ballistic missiles.
“I can confirm that Al Udeid Air Base was attacked by short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles originating from Iran today. At this time, there are no reports of U.S. casualties,” the official said. “We are monitoring this situation closely and will provide more information as it becomes available.”
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There were reports of a separate missile attack on a military base in Iraq, but a defense official told The Associated Press that the only base attacked was Al Udeid.
About 10,000 U.S. troops are stationed at Al Udeid, with a host of vehicles, fighter jets and other military equipment. The U.S. had expected attacks on its military bases and appeared to have taken steps to move some personnel and equipment away from the base. Satellite imagery circulated on social media appeared to show that dozens of aircraft had been moved from the base before the assault.
Iran signaled that it wanted the attack to be a symbolic response but not cause actual damage. The New York Times, citing three Iranian officials, reported that Tehran gave Qatar advance notice of the assault.
Mr. Trump did not offer details on exactly how the U.S. was informed.
In a lengthy statement on X, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari condemned the attack and said his country’s missile defenses shot down the Iranian barrage.
“The state of Qatar strongly condemns the attack that targeted Al-Udeid Air Base by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. We consider this a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar, its airspace, international law and the United Nations Charter,” he wrote. “We affirm that Qatar reserves the right to respond directly in a manner equivalent with the nature and scale of this brazen aggression, in line with international law.”
“We reassure that Qatar’s air defenses successfully thwarted the attack and intercepted the Iranian missiles,” he said.
Iran’s leading regional rival, Saudi Arabia, condemned the attack.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expressed its condemnation and denunciation, in the strongest terms possible, the aggression launched by Iran against the brotherly State of Qatar, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the principles of good neighborliness, and an entirely unacceptable act that cannot be justified under any circumstances,” the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The Arab League called the attack “unacceptable.”
Iranian state TV reports dubbed the attack “a mighty and successful response” by Iran to American aggression. That framing of events is consistent with past instances, including last year when Iran’s missile and drone attacks against Israel largely failed, but were still celebrated on Iranian media as major successes.
Indeed, a story on Iran’s state-run Tasnim News Agency website said “Iranian missiles hit U.S. base in Qatar.” Another story said Al Udeid had been “destroyed.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian did not explicitly mention attacks on Al Udeid, but he posted on social media that Tehran would answer U.S. aggression.
“We were neither the initiators of war nor its seekers; but we will not leave aggression against #Great_Iran unanswered,” he wrote on X. “With all our being, we will stand for the security of this #Dear_Nation and respond to every wound inflicted on Iran’s body with faith, reason, and resolve. People, #God is watching over us.”
“Well, they’ll attack our bases. And those are our bases, and we’re going to defend our personnel,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation” program Sunday.
“But we’ll do more than just defend. We’ll impose costs on Iran if they attack American personnel, whether they do it directly or whether they do it through some of these proxies that they try to hide behind,” he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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