Comments: Though I have not been able to ascertain their precise origin as yet, these emailed images do appear to be authentic and their timing coincides with news coverage of a major sandstorm in western Iraq on Tuesday, April 26, 2005.

The storm, which emerged near the border between Syria and Jordan and moved steadily northeast all day, struck Al Asad with an estimated 4,000-foot-high, 60-mile-per-hour wall of wind and sand around 6:45 pm. Witnesses said the sky turned orange, then pitch-black as the "downburst" blanketed the Al Asad air base, home to a unit of U.S. Marines. No one was hurt and no equipment damaged during the event, which lasted about 45 minutes.

The images bear some resemblance to published photos of the sandstorm taken by Gunnery Sergeant Shannon Aldredge of Marine Corps Public Affairs, who agrees that the pictures circulating on the Internet look authentic, but he didn't shoot them, he says, nor were they released through his office at Al Asad.

Sources and further reading:

Dust in the Wind: A Wall of Sand Moves Through Al Asad
Marine Corps News, 26 April 2005

In Pictures: Iraq Sandstorm
BBC News, 27 April 2005

Last updated: 04/28/05