Iranian strike kills 2 US troops in Jordan, as Tehran vows ‘unforgettable lessons’

The US military said on Saturday that two of its personnel were killed in Jordan and another was missing after an Iranian attack, while Tehran said it had suspended adherence to the memorandum of understanding with Washington and published a message, purportedly from its supreme leader, saying the US would pay an “unforgettable” price for “seeking to incite war” amid daily tit-for-tat attacks.

The US and Iran have intensified attacks since the interim ceasefire deal signed a month ago fell apart, raising the possibility of a return to all-out war. The US has struck Iran for seven consecutive nights now, and the Islamic Republic has responded each time with attacks it said targeted American bases in several Middle East countries, though it has thus far avoided firing at Israel.

US Central Command said the two service members were killed in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Jordan on Friday. It said a third US service member was missing in action and four others were wounded.

CENTCOM said the wounded soldiers were taken to Jordanian hospitals and later discharged, and “other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have returned to duty.”

“Out of respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional information, including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified,” the statement added.

Since the war began, 16 US service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Godspeed, heroes. Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve.”

Iran, responding to US attacks on bridges, power facilities and other infrastructure, also struck US Gulf allies and appeared to target Saudi Arabia.

In a written statement carried by the official social media accounts of Iran’s supreme leader and Iranian state media, Mojtaba Khamenei — who hasn’t been seen or heard in public since taking office — was quoted as saying that repeated US breaches of the interim deal had shown that US President Donald Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility.”

“Now that the American enemy is seeking to escalate the conflict, thereby incurring even heavier costs and further humiliation, it should know that the noble nation of Iran and the axis of resistance have unforgettable lessons in store for it,” the statement said, referring to Iran’s terror proxies across the region.

Khamenei’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

Meanwhile, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran had “suspended” commitments to the memorandum of understanding.

“The US has violated and suspended all its commitments within the framework of the Islamabad MOU,” he said in a statement carried by the Revolutionary Guard-linked Fars news agency.

“We have also suspended our commitments; we are not implementing them, and we are busy defending the country,” he said.

The conflict — which began when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February, killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei and reportedly wounding his son and successor Mojtaba — has led to major disruption to energy supplies, fears over global inflation and a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

As the US sent dozens of refueling jets back to Israel in anticipation of a possible further escalation, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported, citing an unnamed American official, that the US was also sending dozens of warplanes to the Middle East, bolstering its F-16 and F-35 fleets there.

While the escalation has so far excluded Israel, Hebrew media reported Saturday night that Jerusalem has made and is continuing to make extensive preparations for potential Iranian attacks and a regional flare-up that could include new fronts.

Israel estimates that Iran isn’t interested in attacking the Jewish state, due to the anticipated severity of the response, but may nevertheless carry out such an attack or order its regional proxies to attack, according to Channel 13 and the Ynet news site.

Ynet and Channel 12 reported Saturday that Israel had asked to join the strikes on Iran, but that Washington had refused.

Jerusalem has reportedly prepared a new list of targets focused on infrastructure, aimed at weakening the regime.

Channel 12 and Ynet also reported that the security cabinet has discussed the option of banning the use of small multicopter drones throughout Israel, for fear that Iran and its proxies may start launching attack drones — similar to those currently used by Hezbollah in Lebanon — from neighboring countries, or that their use will even spread to the West Bank.

The drone threat has posed a significant technological challenge, with air defenses struggling to prevent the attacks.

On Saturday, Kuwait came under sustained attack, with the armed forces saying they had intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and that a number of firefighters and oil sector workers had been injured while responding to the attacks.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had struck a US military support center at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan and destroyed a radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation later said one of its oil facilities had been hit in “repeated Iranian attacks,” causing significant damage and some injuries, according to the state news agency.

As well as hitting Kuwait, the IRGC targeted a site in Bahrain where US combat aircraft were gathered at Sheikh Isa Air Base and an intelligence data center, Iranian media said.

Saudi Arabia’s early warning system issued alerts early on Saturday urging residents of Al-Kharj and Yanbu to seek shelter. Al-Kharj, east of Riyadh, is home to a military base that hosts US troops, while Yanbu, on the Red Sea, has a key oil export terminal.

Two people briefed on the matter said an Iranian missile attack, the first on Saudi Arabia in more than three months, had triggered the alerts. Saudi state media did not say what had prompted the alerts and the government media office did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRGC made no mention of any attack on Saudi Arabia.

The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council condemned the Iranian attacks, saying strikes on civilian infrastructure amounted to “war crimes.”

“Iran’s actions constitute a highly dangerous escalation, a grave violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, as well as war crimes requiring international accountability and prosecution, given the deliberate targeting of infrastructure and civilian facilities,” Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said in a statement.

Earlier, CENTCOM said it had completed its seventh consecutive day of strikes by hitting Iranian surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage and maritime capabilities.

US airstrikes early on Saturday killed three people and wounded eight others in the southern Hormozgan province, which borders the Strait of Hormuz, while two bridges and a road tunnel were damaged, Iranian state TV reported.

The US carried out further airstrikes in the same province on Saturday afternoon, Fars said, quoting provincial authorities, but there were no reports of civilian casualties.

Iran’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 injured in US strikes on the country over the past three weeks. It did not say how many were members of its armed forces.

The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The strikes threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy is again on alert.

Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started in late February. That sent the price of oil soaring and has given Tehran significant leverage in negotiations.

Iran has asserted the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should pay fees to Tehran, even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. It fired on ships on recent days, contributing to the escalation. Crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.

Trump has resumed threats to target power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold. The US in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.

A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping.

Oil prices rose more than 4 percent on Friday, to their highest level in more than a month, adding to political pressure on Trump as his Republican Party tries to hold on to power in November congressional elections.

The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.

There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.

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— Stav Levaton, military reporter

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