U.S. troops in Iraq were once again in the line of fire last week without sufficient capability to defend themselves. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, confirmed on Friday that U.S. troops at Camp Taji, Iraq, did not have a necessary system to intercept rockets during the March 11 attack by an Iran-backed militia that killed three coalition service members.

This fact highlights the clear vulnerability of deployed U.S. troops in Iraq to indirect fire. It also underscores the need to both deploy, without delay, existing defense capabilities and to expeditiously develop the next generation of indirect fire protection capability, or IFPC.

According to Gen. McKenzie, Kata’ib Hezbollah — an Iran-backed Shiite militia also known as KH that operates in both Iraq and Syria — attempted to launch 33 rockets at U.S. troops at Camp Taji last week. After three misfired, 30 were launched with roughly a third to half of them landing in Camp Taji — killing an American soldier and airman, as well as a British medic. McKenzie called the attack by the Iranian proxy a “large strike” with the “intent to produce a lot of casualties.”