For more than an hour, the missiles knifed in with a whoosh, explosions bursting in the night sky. It wasn’t clear when they’d stop, or what they’d hit.

U.S., coalition and Iraqi troops hunkered down for the Iranian attack in Iraq on Tuesday night had prepared over several days for such an onslaught, following the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general with involvement in the death of hundreds of U.S. troops, according to U.S. officials.