A deal to free hostages from inside Gaza potentially is coming together very soon. But as that's happening, the US. Is experiencing attacks. Another one happened on U. S. Troops in the region. This time it was in Iraq, according to A-U-S. Official. That official said afterward, a military plane, an AC 130 gunship fired on, fired on the hostels. CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins us with more. Natasha, what can you tell us?

Yeah. So the US. Military taking action here to respond to an attack on US. And Coalition forces inside Iraq at Al Assad air Base. And what we're told is that this AC 130 gunship, which is essentially a US. Military aircraft capable of firing artillery at ground targets, it did launch a strike against a vehicle that militants were inside of that apparently they were using that vehicle in order to launch these attacks against this air base. So yet another response by the US. Here to these groups that have been launching these attacks on US. Forces over 60 times since October 17 that have resulted in dozens of injuries among US. Service members at bases in Iraq and Syria. Roughly 64 times American personnel have been attacked by these Iran backed proxy groups. US. Officials say that these groups are essentially taking advantage of the broader regional tensions to stage these attacks and kind of send a message to the US. And its allies that they are not going to be safe. However, the US Responding to airstrikes in Syria and now this strike against these militant groups in Iraq remains to be seen, though, whether these groups are actually going to be deterred by this.

Donna, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it, Natasha. And Colonel Layton, I mean, that's something we cannot lose sight of. 64 times she is reporting that Iranian backed proxies have attacked US. Forces in the region.

Yeah, that's right, Dana. And you have to be really careful with what the Iranians are doing. Ever since we came to Iraq in 2003, the Iranian incredibly active in Iraq. They are looking at Iraq as kind of their area to play in. And they are doing this with their proxy forces, with their intelligence services, and they're doing it so that they can influence Iraq's behavior as well as control more land and get closer to Syria in geographic terms.

And you have some reporting on this as well, David.

Well, the big question here has been, is Iran going to get into this in a full way? Are they just going to use their proxies to try to be a bit of an annoyance? How far can they push it? We knew out in San Francisco that the topic came up between President Biden and Xi Jinping, with the president asking the Chinese leader to use his influence on the Iranians to make sure they calm down. The message we heard back was Chinese said they've already been telling the Iranians to shut sugar out whether they really are, how strongly they're delivering the message. What strikes me here about Natasha's report is that until now we have not seen American strikes back on Iranian proxies inside Iraq because President Biden has not wanted to do anything that might destabilize the Iraqi government. This may mark a change, I can't tell. It's always a fairly small retaliation. But clearly the one thing that President Biden could not abide in any time, but particularly as you're a year out from an election, is strikes that actually caused American casualties. And I think that's the big concern that they've got right now.

Yeah. I mean, when we talk about escalation, we talk about a broader regional war. And then if you put Iraq in the mix, particularly for the world, but especially through the prism of what you just said, the American electorate, that brings up a whole lot of so far.

The President's been very lucky. American forces have been lucky. We've not had significant American casualties.