Iran’s Retaliation Claims Put U.S. Bases in Jordan and the Gulf Under New Strain
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has struck U.S. command and drone facilities in Jordan and targeted American-linked sites in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar with missiles and kamikaze drones. The claims, only partly corroborated by local reports of interceptions and fires, point to a deliberate effort to stretch U.S. defenses across multiple host nations. Readers will learn what Iran asserts it hit, what is known so far on the ground, and how this pressures regional hosts of U.S. forces.
Iran is openly claiming it has taken the fight directly to U.S. bases across the Middle East, asserting that its forces have struck a command center and drone hangars in Jordan and launched waves of kamikaze drones at American-linked installations in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. The statements, issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), signal a new willingness to advertise direct attacks on U.S. forces rather than relying on deniable proxies.
In a statement on 12 July, the IRGC said it carried out retaliatory strikes against U.S. bases in the region, explicitly naming Prince Hassan Airbase in Jordan. According to Iran’s account, its missiles hit a U.S. command-and-control hub and hangars for MQ-9 “Reaper” drones at the facility, and in a follow-up statement it claimed to have struck a main fighter jet base as well. These claims have not been independently confirmed, and U.S. authorities have not yet provided their own public assessment of impacts at Jordanian sites.
At roughly the same time, footage circulated showing Iranian Army kamikaze drones lifting off, described as “Arash-2” one-way attack systems, with narrators stating that they were headed toward U.S. targets in the Gulf. Reports tied these drones to an operation that aimed at Patriot air-defense systems, an ammunition depot and radar installations in Kuwait, and communications and radar infrastructure in Bahrain. Additional alerts and interceptions over Qatar indicated that Iranian ballistic missiles and drones had been launched at multiple U.S.-linked host nations almost simultaneously.
From Jordan to Bahrain, the immediate consequence has been a wave of air-raid sirens, activated missile defenses and emergency drills. In Jordan, unconfirmed reports mentioned air-defense activity at Muwafiq al-Salti Airbase in the east, suggesting that more than one site hosting U.S. forces may have been engaged. In Kuwait and Bahrain, populations unfamiliar with live cross-border strikes in recent years suddenly found themselves listening to explosions and seeking confirmation that they were not in the direct blast radius.
For host governments, Iran’s decision to publicly name U.S. bases as targets carries its own political charge. Leaders in Amman, Doha, Manama and Kuwait City have long balanced the security benefits of U.S. deployments against domestic sensitivities and the risk of entanglement in Washington’s conflicts. Now their airfields, radar stations and ports are being cited in Iranian communiqués as legitimate objects of attack, and their citizens see the practical meaning of hosting foreign troops in the form of sirens and smoke.
Strategically, the IRGC’s claims suggest an effort to stretch U.S. defensive resources as thinly as possible rather than to obliterate any single base. By firing missiles from multiple launch points inside Iran and combining them with swarms of kamikaze drones, Tehran is testing the capacity, reaction times and coordination of U.S. and partner air defenses across several countries at once. Even partial success would force Washington to reconsider how it clusters high-value assets like Reaper drones and fighter jets in a region where the sky is increasingly saturated with threats.
The broader pattern, when set alongside U.S. retaliatory strikes on roughly 140 Iranian military targets, is a regional confrontation that is becoming more direct and less mediated by proxy groups. Bases that once primarily supported operations over Iraq and Syria are now themselves targets being named on Iranian television, and defended in real time by Patriot batteries and fighter jets.
For service members and civilians living on or near these installations, the message is sobering: the front line is no longer a distant theater but the runway, radar dome or fuel depot visible from their neighborhoods. The risk is no longer confined to deployments; it follows them to what were once considered rear-area hubs.
Key signals to track next include whether Washington confirms or downplays Iranian claims about specific damage at Prince Hassan and other bases, whether host governments publicly acknowledge strikes on their territory, and if Iran continues to release footage and detailed accounts of further attacks. Any admission of serious losses at a major airbase, or a move by a Gulf or Jordanian government to reconsider basing arrangements, would mark a significant shift in the regional security equation.
Sources
- OSINT