Iranian strikes hammered U.S. military bases across the Persian Gulf region with far more force than the Pentagon has let on, causing damage that will take billions of dollars to fix, according to U.S. officials.
The attacks came in direct response to U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that began Feb. 28. Iran fired missiles and drones at dozens of sites on American installations spread across seven countries in the Middle East.
Three U.S. officials, two congressional aides, and another person familiar with the internal assessments described the toll to NBC News.
In a report published on Saturday, April 25, they said the damage hit warehouses, command centers, aircraft hangars, satellite communications gear, runways, high-tech radar systems, and multiple aircraft.
Iranian F-5 fighter jet’s surprise attack on the U.S. base
In one early strike, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet flew a bombing run on Camp Buehring in Kuwait and got through American air defenses.
Two U.S. officials called it the first known case in years of an enemy fixed-wing aircraft successfully hitting a U.S. base.
The Pentagon has played down the impact in public statements, but the officials said the overall damage across the bases is much worse than what has been released.
An assessment from the American Enterprise Institute reached the same conclusion about the scale of the hits.
The U.S. government reportedly asked commercial satellite companies to limit or block imagery of the damaged sites, making it harder for outsiders to see the full picture.
It will cost billions of dollars to repair the damage, and some of the affected systems, such as high-end radars and satellite links, will take months or longer to replace or rebuild.
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The revelations come as the 2026 conflict with Iran continues and questions grow about how well U.S. defenses held up against a determined barrage of missiles, drones, and at least one manned aircraft.
A separate Iranian strike in March destroyed a U.S. E-3 Sentry radar plane on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, photos reviewed by NBC News showed.
Officials have not released a full list of every base hit or exact damage figures, which remain classified. But the sources described repeated strikes that knocked out key infrastructure at multiple locations.
President Trump had repeatedly claimed that U.S. and Israeli strikes had wiped out Iran’s air defense systems. In one of his White House addresses, he said Iran had “no anti-aircraft equipment” left and that its radar was “100 percent annihilated.” He told Americans the Iranian military could do nothing to stop U.S. aircraft.
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Yet just days before the ceasefire, just before the current ceasefire took hold, Iranian forces shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet over southern Iran.
Both crew members ejected safely. One pilot was rescued quickly, while the second airman, a colonel, was recovered days later after an extensive and risky search-and-rescue operation deep inside Iranian territory.
The downing of the jet raised fresh questions about how much of Iran’s defense capability had actually been destroyed.
The gap between the private damage reports and the public downplaying has caused concerns within Congress and among some military analysts regarding transparency and the true state of U.S. readiness in the region.
No immediate comment was available from the Pentagon on the latest reporting.
The strikes have added pressure on U.S. forces already stretched by the conflict, even as diplomatic moves to reach a ceasefire remain underway.
