Iran Fires Missiles at US Jordan Base Amid Tensions

Iran is pulling no punches in its latest war of words and fire against the United States. Tehran has begun hitting assets inside Jordan as tensions boil over between Washington and Tehran following a series of strikes on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The focus now shifts to Al-Azraq airbase, where American military equipment and soldiers sit just across the border from Syria and Iraq.

On Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, Iran fired ballistic missiles at this Jordanian site. They call it a retaliation for US actions. Most of those incoming rounds never reached their mark. The Jordanian Armed Forces reported that 18 out of 20 missiles were shot down overnight. Two landed in open areas instead. Nobody was hurt according to reports from the front lines.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed these attacks did heavy damage. They said projectiles struck maintenance sites, preparation zones, and deployment spots for F-35, F-16, and F-15 fighter jets. The group also blasted shelters housing these aircraft. A semi-official news outlet called Tasnim relayed the statement saying the enemy took a beating. But a Trump administration official in Washington told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that the barrage was ineffective against integrated air defense systems. No casualties were reported by US or Jordanian authorities.

Why does Iran care about this specific base? The conflict started two weeks ago when US forces attacked rocket launchers on Iran's Larak island. Tehran said those sites held sea mines, but Washington claimed they were being used for offensive purposes. In response, Iran struck back at allies in the Gulf region and now includes Jordan. This move widens the scope of the fighting significantly.

Reports suggest nearly 4,000 US soldiers are stationed in Jordan based on a 2026 Congressional Research Service document. Many of these troops operate out of Al-Azraq near Azraq in the Zarqa governorate. Others sit at the King Faisal Air Base in southern Jordan or at Tower 22, a remote logistics outpost near the borders with Syria and Iraq. The US keeps foreign military capabilities secret by design, yet these numbers are widely known.

This is not the first time Tehran has claimed to hit this location. Between March and September, Iran says it struck Al-Azraq more than ten times. The initial air attacks came in early March. Then on June 10, missiles targeted the base again after a US Apache helicopter crashed near the waters. On that day, Iran also said it hit bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. They claimed to destroy hangars and command centers but neighboring countries insisted all projectiles were intercepted without loss of life.

In July, the pattern continued. On July 17, Iran stated it used ballistic missiles and drones to strike US military aircraft stationed at Al-Azraq. The group said they destroyed refueling planes and fighter jets during that assault. Despite these bold claims from Tehran, Jordanian officials maintain their defense grids held strong against every single salvo so far.

US Central Command confirmed that two American service members died in the Iranian attack and one soldier is still missing while four others suffered injuries. The Muwaffaq Salti Air Base near Azraq sits nearly 100km northeast of Amman inside Jordan's sparsely populated Eastern Desert. Its official name honors Lieutenant Muwaffaq Salti, a Jordanian fighter pilot who died fighting Israel in the 1966 Battle of Samu.

Amman and Washington signed a defence cooperation agreement in 2021 that granted US forces and contractors access to 12 military installations across the kingdom. "Al-Azraq base is among the few that host F-35s, F-16s, and F-22s [fighter jets]," said Tahani Mustafa, a lecturer in international relations at the Department of War Studies at King's College London. "It has hangars where the Americans can hide [their assets], and that's what the Iranians have been targeting." The sprawling facility has two runways, making it an important asset for the US – and a target for Iran, Mustafa told Al Jazeera.

In the weeks leading up to the planned conflict between the US and Israel over Iran, the base became "a key logistics hub" for US C-17 transport planes and about 60 combat aircraft, David Schenker, a fellow at the Washington Institute, told The Associated Press news agency. "Jordan provides great strategic depth," he said, calling the kingdom's position "essential" to the US war on Iran because it offers distance against Iranian missiles and drones compared with GCC countries that sit much closer. A 2023 report by Washington's Congressional Research Service underlined that "Jordanian air bases have been particularly important for the US conduct of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in Syria and Iraq."

That same report also noted the US "never officially acknowledged its presence at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base prior to the 2021 agreement", even though "satellite imagery shows it has hosted US Air Force (USAF) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and fast jets since at least 2016". In July this year, The New York Times reported that Jordan became more important in the early days of the ongoing war as a number of US troops stationed in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were relocated there. Back in 2017, the US Congress authorised $143m in air force construction funds to expand the base's ramp space, reportedly the biggest such project at the time.