Iran has been stepping up its missile and drone attacks on U.S. forces in Jordan as it seeks to produce American casualties and deter Washington from escalating its test of wills with Tehran, current and former officials say.
The weekend Iranian missile strikes at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, which killed two U.S. servicemembers and left a third presumed dead, were the first American deaths from hostile fire since April when the two sides announced a now abandoned ceasefire.
But they were hardly the only attacks Iran has directed against American forces in Jordan, as it seeks to punish the Arab country for its cooperation with Washington by making it a flashpoint while fueling the U.S. debate at home about the war.
Iran also attacked King Faisal Air Base last week, where U.S. forces are also based. Iranian forces also struck a separate airfield in Jordan, where several U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were damaged, an American official said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, declined to comment on battle-damage assessments of the Iranian strikes.
Tehran’s repeated attacks on Jordan come as the Trump administration has spent the past week broadening American airstrikes in Iran to include bridges and other infrastructure.
Even larger American attacks may be coming as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the death of the U.S. servicemembers “stiffens our resolve” and more U.S. warplanes head to the Middle East. U.S. F-16 jet fighters from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany have been sent to the region as have stealthy U.S. F-35s from the air base at Lakenheath, England. Aerial tankers are being deployed as well.
While the locations of the U.S. deployments are being kept secret, Jordan and Israel are widely seen by military experts as the likely hosts for many of the assets.
In Amman, the result is that a close American ally has increasingly found itself in Tehran’s crosshairs as it has emerged as a major hub for U.S. military operations in the nearly five-month-old conflict.
“Some of this is geography,” said Alan Eyre, a former senior American diplomat in Jordan who is a fellow at the Middle East Institute. “Some of it is Jordan’s willingness to fully align itself with the U.S. strategic and regional goals due to its economic dependence on Washington.”
“It was a good low-risk strategy until Iran decided to retaliate against the U.S. regional bases,” Eyre added.
Jordan has long had strong security ties with the U.S. With no oil to export, it has also been a major recipient of American economic and military aid. A seven-year agreement that was signed in 2022 provides for $1.45 billion in annual and economic aid for Jordan, according to the Congressional Research Service.
For years, Jordan sought to play down its close military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. The U.S. aircraft that carried out strikes on Islamic State from a base in Jordan during the American war with the militants didn’t advertise the country they were operating from.
But Jordan’s role is now becoming too prominent to obscure. Jordan has become an attractive location for U.S. armed forces since it is among the most permissive in the Arab world when it comes to allowing the U.S. to operate from its bases.
Its relative distance from Iran, compared with Gulf states such as Kuwait and Bahrain, offers another plus. It is somewhat less exposed to Iranian firepower.
Yet Jordan’s modest military leaves it with a notable disadvantage. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Sunday to attack Iran with “full fire” if Tehran resumed striking his country with ballistic missiles. With its small forces, Jordan isn’t in a position to make a similar threat.
The result is that Iran has carried out missile and drone attacks on bases in Jordan while for now ignoring Israel, where U.S. aircraft are also based.
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com