Five missiles launched from Iran were shot down over Jordan’s eastern region on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said. By its account, they were heading for the Al-Azraq area in Zarqa province.
The armed forces said the interceptions caused no casualties and no property damage, though debris fell. Specialized units went to the impact zones to secure the crash sites, and military engineers began clearing missile remnants of any explosives. Jordan’s statement added that its forces are at the highest level of readiness and will not tolerate violations of its airspace.
Iran told a different story. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it had destroyed hangars housing F-35 fighter jets and hit about 21 American air and naval bases, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency. Four key locations were struck, the Guards said, among them the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and the US Army’s command-and-control centre at Al-Azraq in Jordan, which they described as completely destroyed.
Fire across the Gulf
Press TV reported fresh explosions in Kuwait and Bahrain. The Guards’ naval forces, in a statement carried by Iranian media, said they launched a drone attack on the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain at about 2:30 a.m. local time. They called it payback for US strikes on several sites in southern Iran earlier that day.
The chain began with an Apache helicopter. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that “the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz.” Both pilots survived without injury. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” he said.
On Tuesday, US Central Command announced “self-defence strikes” against Iran, which it called a “proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi answered on X. “Despite its defeats on the battlefield, the US opted to test our determination,” he wrote, and warned that Iran’s armed forces “will leave no attack or threat unanswered.” His advice to Washington was blunt: “Leave our region if you want to be safe.”
The exchange unfolds alongside a wider Iran-Israel conflict that has recently included strikes on Iranian infrastructure and reported attacks on Israeli military facilities.
