Iran fires ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan as CENTCOM says all were intercepted

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Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles at United States forces in the Middle East on Tuesday in what US Central Command described as an attempted surprise attack, briefly shattering a pause in direct fighting between the two countries. CENTCOM said all of the incoming missiles were intercepted and that American troops across the region remain at heightened readiness.

In its statement, CENTCOM said Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces fired the missiles from Iranian territory at about 5:45pm Eastern time. Jordan’s army said three missiles launched from Iran came down at several locations inside the kingdom. Open-source trackers circulated footage of intense air-defence activity over Jordan, including near Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, and residents of Eilat in southern Israel reported hearing interception blasts.

The salvo carried outsized political weight because of its timing. It was the first Iranian ballistic missile attack on a US base since President Donald Trump paused American strikes on Iran on Friday to give negotiators room to work. Trump’s envoys have been trying to turn a memorandum of understanding signed with Tehran in mid-June into a broader agreement, and Washington had presented the pause as a test of Iranian intent.

Tuesday’s attack followed a far deadlier one. On the night of 17 July, Iranian ballistic missiles struck a base hosting American forces in Jordan, killing two US service members and leaving a third unaccounted for. That strike hardened opinion in Washington against a quick settlement and made the subsequent pause in operations politically costly for the administration.

The response came quickly, and from an unusual quarter. US and Saudi fighter aircraft struck what CENTCOM called multiple logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq, saying they belonged to Iran-aligned fighters that the Revolutionary Guard had directed to attack American forces and Saudi energy infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry confirmed its participation — the first time Riyadh has publicly claimed strikes inside Iraq since the war began.

Riyadh said its aircraft hit militias on Iraqi soil linked to attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities, after Saudi forces intercepted drones aimed at installations in the east of the country. US officials said Iran-aligned groups had launched more than two dozen drone attacks in recent days.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella for Iran-aligned armed factions, denied any involvement. It described the Saudi accusations as fabrications and warned that any Saudi action against it would meet a harsh response. The same coalition had threatened earlier in the month to strike US bases if Washington escalated against Iran.

The strikes put Iraq’s government in a familiar bind. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, sworn in on 14 May at the age of 40 as the country’s youngest premier, took office at the head of a cabinet that was formed with only part of its ministerial slate filled, and he commands little leverage over the armed groups operating on Iraqi territory.

A second front has opened at the southern end of the Red Sea. Yemen’s Houthi movement claimed missile and drone attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in July, and Saudi authorities confirmed an attack on the refined-products tanker Encelia. The Houthis say the campaign amounts to a blockade of Saudi ports in retaliation for the kingdom’s strikes on Sanaa.

Naval monitors reported Houthi missiles and drones positioned near the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The European Union’s naval mission in the region warned that merchant vessels linked to Israeli, American or Saudi interests should avoid the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden until the threat level falls. The group has also emailed shipowners warning them away from Saudi ports.

Energy markets have absorbed the strain. The Strait of Hormuz normally carries about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil, and Brent crude has traded above $100 a barrel during the standoff over the waterway, rising more than four percent on days when the two sides traded attacks. Prices eased during the lull in fighting and firmed again after Tuesday’s launches.

The missiles flew as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House for his first meeting with Trump since the war broke out on 28 February. Netanyahu entered through a side door with no public ceremony and said he intended to raise Iran first. Israeli officials acknowledge that his influence over American war policy has narrowed since a ceasefire in early April, and he failed to persuade Trump to keep fighting in order to degrade Iranian military capability further.

For Yemen, the wider confrontation compounds an emergency that long predates it. The country’s civil war has run since 2014, when Houthi forces seized Sanaa, and it has left millions of people dependent on humanitarian assistance and millions more displaced inside their own country. Renewed fighting in the Red Sea drives up insurance and freight costs on the routes that carry most of Yemen’s imported food and fuel, and any sustained disruption at Bab al-Mandeb would be felt in Yemeni markets within weeks.

What follows is unresolved. Trump must decide whether to resume strikes or press on with talks. Iran has shown it can escalate without walking away from negotiations. Gulf states that had stayed at the margins are now directly exposed, and each side appears to be testing how much pressure the other will absorb before the diplomacy gives way.