Jordan is becoming a new focus in the US-Iran war

DUBAI - The Iranian attack that killed two US soldiers and left one service member missing on July 17 was the fourth in five days on US forces in Jordan, said US officials.

The attacks so far have wounded dozens of US service members and damaged a number of helicopters.

The flurry of attacks and the losses they have caused are a sign that Iranian forces not only still have ample missile stocks but have also become more adept at evading US air defence systems, said the US officials, who were speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Jordan, which hosts major US air bases, grew in importance in the run-up to and the early days of the war, as the Pentagon shifted a number of troops from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to relatively more secure locations in Jordan and Israel.

The country’s role in US operations has increased as other US allies in the region have restricted Washington’s ability to base troops in and fly aircraft over their territories, the US officials said.

In early July, Iran widened its attacks in the region, including Jordan for the first time since Iran and the US signed a ceasefire agreement in June.

The US officials gave an acount of the last five days of Iran’s attacks on Jordan, which the Pentagon has not yet discussed in detail publicly.

The first attack to hit US forces in Jordan struck a residential facility at King Faisal Air Base, wounding as many as five US service members, they said. The second hit a base in eastern Jordan where US Black Hawk helicopters were operating from, damaging a significant number of them.

Iranian missiles hit Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, which is the same base where the troops were killed on July 17, the officials said. The earlier strike wounded about 20 US troops rushing to take cover in bunkers. No one was killed.

But on July 17, the Iranians struck the base again and two US service members were killed while four others were injured, according to US officials. Other personnel were evaluated for minor injuries.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

On July 17, the Iranian army said it had launched a drone attack targeting fuel tanks at the US base in Azraq. The Revolutionary Guard also said it had used missiles and drones to target aircraft shelters at the base, according to the Fars News Agency, a semi-official news outlet affiliated with the Guard.

Jordan’s location allows the US to conduct “more efficient air operations across Syria, Iraq and the broader region”, said David Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant-general who was a main architect of the 1991 Persian Gulf air war.

“Friday’s attack was therefore not just an attack on a base,” he said in an e-mail on July 18. “It was an attack on the US regional coalition and an attempt to make the political cost of hosting American forces greater than the security benefit.”

The US military announced on July 18 that it had launched retaliatory strikes to degrade Iran’s threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched attacks against American service members in Jordan”.

Even before those strikes, President Donald Trump signalled that he planned to increase strikes on Iran in the next week and intended to hit more Iranian infrastructure, including bridges, electrical power plants and distribution systems. NYTIMES