The US is concerned that the Iranian military is growing increasingly effective at penetrating its air defenses in the Middle East, several media outlets have reported, citing anonymous officials. It comes off the back of a deadly missile and drone strike on a military base in Jordan on Friday, which left two American service members killed and another one missing, according to the Pentagon.
In an article on Saturday, the New York Times quoted its sources as saying that the latest Iranian retaliatory strikes are a “sign that Iranian forces not only still have ample missile stocks but have also become more adept at evading US air defense systems.”
The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous officials, similarly reported that the Iranian military “has adapted to US defenses, firing missiles that travel at extremely high speeds and can maneuver as they streak toward the Earth.”
According to the NYT, in the run-up to the US-Israeli military campaign against the Islamic Republic that started in late February, the Pentagon had moved some of its troops from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to Jordan and Israel. Since the two countries are situated further away from Iranian territory, they were supposedly considered to be relatively safe by the US military leadership.
Daoud Kuttab, a journalist and columnist at Al-Monitor, has likewise told RT that “maybe the Americans thought that they would be safer in Jordan.” However, “it seems that Iran doesn’t have any red lines,” he added.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iranian missile capabilities have been badly degraded by American airstrikes over the past several months.
In June, he told Kristen Welker at NBC News that “most of the [Iranian] drone factories have been knocked out… and most of the missile manufacturing areas have been knocked out,” with Tehran’s arsenals supposedly down to 21% of their pre-war levels.
On Saturday, US Central Command reported that two American service members had been killed, while another remained unaccounted for, following an Iranian ballistic missile and kamikaze drone barrage on a military installation in Jordan the previous day.
At around the same time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that its forces had destroyed at least two US fighter jets and three other aircraft at an American base in Al-Azraq, Jordan.
The NYT, citing anonymous officials, reported that US military personnel stationed in the Middle Eastern country had come under Iranian missile and UAV attacks on at least three separate occasions earlier in the week. The strikes reportedly left dozens of US service members injured and damaged a significant number of Blackhawk helicopters.
Washington and Tehran have exchanged fire on a nearly daily basis over the past week, following the collapse of a ceasefire earlier this month.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi recently announced that the Islamic Republic had suspended its commitments under the 60-day ceasefire, which Washington and Tehran tentatively agreed to on June 17 as part of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
Earlier this month, Trump similarly declared the truce with Iran “over.”
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