--- title: U.S. Troops Now Under ‘Frequent’ Attack at Iraqi Base description: ISIS lobs `sporadic' rounds at base where Americans are training Iraqis canonical: https://time.com/3654879/al-asad-iraq-attacks-isis/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-05T23:35:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:40:42.839Z article:section: Politics og:title: U.S. Troops Now Under ‘Frequent’ Attack at Iraqi Base og:description: ISIS lobs `sporadic' rounds at base where Americans are training Iraqis og:url: https://time.com/3654879/al-asad-iraq-attacks-isis/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c57fbbada4bdf04/6987784d06f2c10a1933339b/iraq-airbase-isis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: U.S. Marines at Al Asad Air Base in Iraqís Anbar Province. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: U.S. Troops Now Under ‘Frequent’ Attack at Iraqi Base twitter:description: ISIS lobs `sporadic' rounds at base where Americans are training Iraqis twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c57fbbada4bdf04/6987784d06f2c10a1933339b/iraq-airbase-isis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # U.S. Troops Now Under 'Frequent' Attack at Iraqi Base > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=22a7034f-8e8c-453b-a13f-bc8124008253&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: What the ISIS Flag Says About the Militant Group [Watch (HLS stream): What the ISIS Flag Says About the Militant Group](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QFjP70IG.m3u8) (2:12)  _Published 2014-09-17. The black and white standard of the Sunni militants gives some insight into how the group sees itself_ by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Jan 5, 2015 11:35 PM UTC  U.S. Marines at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq's Anbar province, Dec. 28, 2014. U.S. Marines at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq's Anbar province, Dec. 28, 2014. Ayman Oghanna—The New York Times—Redux by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Jan 5, 2015 11:35 PM UTC Last month, the Pentagon declared there were “no reports” of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria firing on U.S. troops stationed at Iraq’s huge al-Asad base. This month, the Pentagon acknowledged Monday, ISIS has been routinely lobbing “completely ineffective” rounds at the U.S. troops training Iraqi forces at the base north of Baghdad. Who knows what next month will bring? Firing crude rockets and mortar rounds is an inexact science, to be sure, but it’s basically like shooting at fish in a barrel. Yes, the fish are very small—and the barrel very big (the base is 25 square miles)—but no military force likes to be pinned down by mortar and rocket barrages. With every incoming round, the chances go up that someone on the base is going to be wounded, or worse. This is President Obama’s dilemma: he has declared there will be no U.S. combat boots on the ground inside Iraq, yet he has dispatched American soldiers to a base with at least a smattering of enemy forces around it. If ISIS gets lucky—and wounds or kills U.S. troops—the political pressure on Obama to escalate will be intense. Since Christmas, the U.S. and its allies have launched air strikes at ISIS targets near al Asad on five days, [including](http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123912) a pair Monday that “struck two \[ISIS\] tactical units and destroyed three \[ISIS\] vehicles,” according to a Pentagon release. But air power is a tough way to take out shoot-and-scoot mortar teams. It takes ISIS fighters only moments to set up and fire several rounds, before likely returning to dwellings shared with civilians, which U.S. policy bars attacking. Ground units, with the capability to gather intelligence before busting down doors and apprehending perpetrators, are a far more effective weapon against such attacks. al Asad air base was the second-biggest U.S. base in Iraq during the 2003-11 Iraq war. About 100 miles west of Baghdad in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, the base sits on the Syrian Desert. About 320 U.S. troops are now there, earning hazardous-duty pay while training Iraq’s 7th Infantry Division to take on ISIS. There are just over 2,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, and Obama has authorized the dispatch of 1,000 more. There have been grim reports from the region in recent weeks. The BBC [reported](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30492064) Dec. 19 that the base “has been encircled by militants from Islamic State (IS).” Four days later, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a branch of the U.S. government, [reported](http://www.rferl.org/content/under-black-flag-islamic-state-us-reinforcements-anbar/26759152.html) that Iraqi military forces and tribal fighters, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, had thwarted an ISIS effort to overrun the base. “al Asad air base has received some indirect fire in the last week or so, couple of weeks,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told CNN Monday. “It happens frequently, but it’s not like multiple attacks every single day.” The Pentagon, he says, calls it “unguided— it’s just random, sporadic, you might get one, one day, and three the next day. It’s done no damage, it has hurt nobody.” While that may be true in a physical sense, there is a psychological cost that comes with being under persistent fire. It’s a signal that you’re vulnerable, and that your foes retain at least some initiative that could prove deadly for you or your comrades. “It’s not too bad,” Marine Corporal Zak Taylor recently [told](http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/12/31/374071914/there-and-back-again-for-u-s-military-in-iraq) NPR of his deployment to the base. “You kind of get used to everything.” He paused. “Not the rockets—that’s definitely one thing we’ll never get used to.”  U.S. troops leave al Asad air base in November 2011 heading for home. ALI AL-SAADI / AFP / Getty Images ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Images of masked militants carrying the stark black and white flag of ISIS, with the Islamic State in Iraq and greater Syria, have become commonplace across the Middle East. But what does the standard of the self- declared Islamic State say about the group and its supporters [ MUSIC ] The color, calligraphy, and choice of words on the flag reveal the group's history and also, its goals. The coarse, handwritten, Arabic script and white circle in the middle of the Isis flag are a copy of what's known as the seal of Mohammed. Which the prophet himself is believed to have used in his lifetime to seal letters he wrote to foreign leaders. The use of that seal has a veneer of historical authenticity to ISIS's mission. The symbolic weight of its stark black and white tones is meant to represent the solid blank flag of the prophet Muhammad's war banner. [ MUSIC ] Experts say there's a kind of Islamic end of days element to the flag, pitting the forces of Islam against the Christian west. But the words on the flag are just as important. The power of the flag comes from the use of the words, there is no god but god. The word Allah is seen as sacred by Muslims and hence it becomes sacrilegious to desecrate the flag across the Muslim world. For example, the Lebanese government, no fan of ISIS, called for burning the flag. To be banned, as burning anything with word Allah on it is viewed as an insult to Islam. The use of the flag is a conscious attempt by Isis to root itself in the history of Jihad and the desire to establish a [ UNKNOWN ], or Islamic State. Perhaps, the better we understand the group's symbol, the better we'll understand the cause. 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