On Friday, two US service members were killed in Jordan in an Iranian attack, according to US Central Command. By Sunday night, July 19, American forces had struck Iran for the ninth consecutive night.
The record from those three days is a ledger of retaliation. The US military said its earlier strikes hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to Friday’s deaths. One more was unaccounted for after that attack; on Sunday “unidentified remains” turned up, and examination was under way. On Saturday a further service member died in northern Iraq during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. Seventeen US service members have died since the war began.
What the Sunday strikes hit
Central Command listed the ninth night’s targets: military command posts, air defences, coastal surveillance, naval assets, missile and drone bases, and communications links. The stated aim was to reduce “Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”. Footage released by the US military appeared to show fighter jets and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the sea. In the second week of renewed fire, the US has also hit bridges and electrical facilities.
“We hit them very hard again tonight,” President Donald Trump said, adding that the strikes were meant to honour the soldiers who died.
Iran’s atomic energy organisation accused US forces of firing projectiles at its Darkhovin nuclear power plant, still being built. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was investigating the reports and had contacted authorities in Iran.
Iran’s side of the ledger
The Guard claimed strikes on US military sites in Kuwait, among them a radar for spotting incoming threats that it called “completely destroyed”, in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA. It further claimed that two oil tankers blew up and were disabled on a southern route through the strait that it called unsafe, and warned the US to prepare for a “punitive operation”. Reuters could not verify the tanker claim. The Pentagon denied Iran’s account, DW reported.
Iranian missiles also flew toward Jordan, which hosts major US bases. Its military said it brought down three on Sunday, and a fourth landed in a remote spot. One was headed for Aqaba, the southern port beside the Israeli frontier; AFP cited Israel’s military as saying Israeli and Jordanian forces together stopped it. Amman summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires over what it called “unjustified and blatant Iranian attacks”. Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait activated air defences, and the US embassy in Bahrain warned that Iran may seek to hit unspecified spots in the heart of Manama.
How it got here
Step by step, the two sides had moved toward all-out war since an interim deal meant to end the fighting permanently collapsed the previous month. Traffic through the strait has mostly ground to a halt. On Monday, benchmark Brent crude climbed past $US90 a barrel, fuelling a global energy crisis. Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a written statement warning of reprisals for the US attacks.
Sources
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-20/us-military-launches-strikes-on-iran-for-ninth-straight-night/106934804
- https://www.dw.com/en/us-strikes-iran-after-2-service-members-killed-in-jordan/live-78015388
