Iran said on Monday it had attacked US military targets in Jordan in retaliation for American strikes on Iranian territory a day earlier (Geo News).
What the US did
On Sunday, US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, a small island in the Strait of Hormuz near the port of Bandar Abbas.
US Central Command said on X that its forces “took limited, precise action against IRGC minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz.” It gave no further detail.
A US official told Axios the systems were being prepared to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the strait, The Express Tribune reported. It was the first known US strike on Iranian soil since late July.
What Iran did
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck two US air bases in Jordan with ballistic missiles, causing “heavy damage” — a claim carried on the AFP/Reuters wire by Geo and Dawn, and separately by Anadolu. No independent confirmation of damage at either base has emerged. The IRGC named them as the King Hussein and Azraq bases, according to Anadolu via Tribune; neither Geo nor Dawn names them.
Jordan’s army said it intercepted eight missiles that breached its airspace and destroyed them before they threatened civilians or property. It did not state where they came from.
None of Geo, Dawn or Tribune reports a casualty figure from the Jordan strikes. The Guards say the Larak strike killed and wounded IRGC members and civilians, without giving a number; that claim rests solely on Iranian statements and has not been confirmed by Washington.
Iran’s army separately said it launched dozens of explosive drones at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE. The UAE defence ministry denied the base had been targeted at all, calling the reports “baseless”; it said only that its air force engaged a drone over its territorial waters that had come from Iran, without saying whether it was shot down or what it was aimed at. The Associated Press reported no damage. US Central Command has not commented on the Iranian claim.
Amman’s position
Jordan, which hosts US forces, has issued no political statement beyond its army’s account of the interception. It has not publicly assigned blame.
What Tehran says
President Masoud Pezeshkian, in his first comments since the strike, said Iran “is not looking for war” but will “never sit still in the face of any aggression,” speaking before leaving for an SCO summit in Bishkek. The remarks come via Fars and are carried by Tribune alone among the outlets consulted; neither Geo nor Dawn reports them.
“Instability and unrest in the region are not in the interest of any country,” he said.
Iran’s military struck a different note, vowing further retaliation against US troops.
The Kharg claim
Trump posted that Iran’s oil hub Kharg Island was “being blown to smithereens.” Reuters, using software that detects AI-manipulated imagery, found the video accompanying the post was most likely synthetically generated, and reported no other evidence that Kharg was under attack. The National Iranian Oil Company’s Hamid Bovard called the post “laughable,” saying conditions on the island are “calm and appropriate” and oil operations have not stopped.
The status of the Strait of Hormuz is itself disputed: Trump has repeatedly said it is open, while the Revolutionary Guards’ navy calls that “an obvious lie” and says the waterway is shut to ships without Iranian permission, per Tribune. Shipping data cited by Tribune put transits at about five commodity vessels a day over the weekend.
As of Monday afternoon, Washington had not publicly responded to the attack on the Jordanian bases.
