United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday, July 19, that two US personnel were killed and another was missing in Jordan following an Iranian attack on Friday, July 17.

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, informed reporters on Sunday night that the two soldiers died after a missile hit the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

CENTCOM also said that a third US service member was killed in Iraq in a separate incident, while he was conducting a “controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone” on Saturday, July 18. A second service member sustained minor wounds in the blast as well.

On Monday, July 20, the US Department of War said that the two soldiers killed in Jordan were identified as First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan (25) from Hawaii, and Private Isabella Gonzales (19) from Texas.

On Tuesday, July 21, the Pentagon identified the soldier killed in Iraq as Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton (30) from North Carolina.

The killing of the three US soldiers came a couple of days after the US launched a wave of strikes on different parts of Iran, which killed at least 50 Iranians, and injured 500 others.

The renewed US attacks, which according to Iranian media, targeted civilian infrastructure, alongside the resumption of the US naval blockade on Iran have effectively led to the complete collapse of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran.

**Trump says US struck Iran “**very hard again” in honor of the three soldiers

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that a new wave of attacks was launched against Iran on Sunday, in honor of the three killed US service members.

“Well, we feel very badly, but you know those great people, those great patriots who are out there fighting that Iran cannot have nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

“We’ll see what happens, but we hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honor of the probably three,” he continued.

The Trump administration embarrasses Jordan with the announcement

The US announcement regarding the deaths of the soldiers publicly contradicted the Jordanian government, after Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi denied – at the Aspen Security Forum two days earlier – that Jordan hosts US military bases.

Safadi further explained that there are no US bases in Jordan, and that there are only US troops on Jordanian soil as part of a “longstanding military cooperation.”

“Their presence is governed by a defense agreement that fully respects our sovereignty. So the Iranian narrative is that there are bases in Jordan and others in the region and that’s why they try to justify their attacks. That is not the case,” the Jordanian FM emphasized.

Nevertheless, the details Rubio provided about the site of the soldiers’ deaths, contradicted what Safadi said. Based on a report published by Air & Space Forces Magazine, the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan serves as a crucial operational facility for CENTCOM in West Asia.

The base hosts dozens of US fighter jets and support personnel that are used to launch air strikes across Iraq, Syria, and Iran. This in turn suggests that it has played a strategic role in the US war on Iran.

Iran launches retaliatory attacks on US bases in the Gulf

Iranian retaliatory attacks on US bases in the West Asia region were not limited to those located in Jordan. Bases in Gulf states, including Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia were also targeted by the Iranian armed forces during the past week as part of “Operation Nasr-2.”

On Tuesday, July 21, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stated that its Aerospace Force struck the central data infrastructure of the US companyAmazon in Bahrain with cruise missiles.

The Sheikh Isa Air Base, a major facility located on the coast of southern Bahrain and linked to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, was also targeted with Iranian drones that same day.

In addition, the IRGC said that it completely destroyed and decommissioned a US air defense unit, a radar system, and a US Patriot air defense missile system in the Al-Muharraq and Al-Riffa regions in Bahrain, using a combination of missiles and drones during the operation.

Moreover, US assets in Kuwait and Jordan, along with a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, were targeted by Iran on Tuesday.

On Sunday, the Iranian Army attacked two major US military facilities in Kuwait with explosive drones. An ammunition depot at Camp Udairi, a Patriot radar and air surveillance radar systems at Ali Al-Salem Air Base, as well as logistics infrastructure were targeted in the attacks.

Prince Sultan Air Base in the Saudi city of al-Kharj, which hosts US troops, was also reportedly attacked by Iran on Saturday, July 18.

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