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Iran Conflict 2026
23AUG

Iran hits US bases in three countries

3 min read
19:02UTC

The IRGC struck Jordan's Azraq airbase for the first time alongside US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, then claimed a downed Reaper that no defender confirmed.

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ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran climbed the escalation ladder by adding a third country to its target list, not by inflicting more damage.

Iran's IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) retaliated on Wednesday 10 June against the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait, and Azraq airbase in Jordan, hours after US ordnance hit Iranian soil 1. Three host countries struck in one operation widens the 5 June salvo of seven missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain and extends the campaign that began with the Shahed-136 drone strike on Kuwait International Airport on 3 June . Jordan, a US partner that had stayed outside the kinetic exchange, is the new front.

The two accounts of the night diverge sharply. IRGC media claimed 21 targets attacked and four destroyed, including an F-35 hangar at Azraq and a downed US MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone 2. Jordan's military said it intercepted all five incoming missiles with no injuries and no damage, and a US official reported nearly all Iranian fire intercepted with no US casualties 3. The maximalist tally reads as IRGC framing for Arab audiences, not a verified battle-damage assessment; treat the F-35 hangar and the Reaper as claims, not facts.

Bahrain carried the intercept burden from a near-empty magazine. Its PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability) stock sat at 87 per cent depletion before this barrage, yet it absorbed the salvo without a confirmed loss , with Saudi Arabia already excluded from Qatar's emergency Patriot waiver as Gulf stocks ran low . Striking three hosts at once is a coercion play aimed at the coalition, not the casualty count: Iran cannot beat US air defence, but it can make basing the US fleet politically expensive for Manama, Kuwait City and Amman.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Within hours of American strikes on Iran, Iran's military fired back at American bases in three countries: Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. This was Iran's way of showing it could still hit multiple US military locations spread across the Gulf and beyond. Iran's military made big claims about what it destroyed, including a hangar holding an advanced US fighter jet. But Jordan's own military said it stopped all five missiles aimed at its airbase, and a US official said nearly all Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted with nobody killed. This gap between what Iran claimed and what independent sources reported is a recurring feature of the conflict: both sides issue casualty and damage numbers that rarely match each other.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The 5 June two-country salvo established that Iran would respond to CENTCOM strikes on its radar with a ballistic missile barrage at US Gulf bases. The 9-10 June CENTCOM strikes on Iranian soil created an obligation in IRGC doctrine to respond at a higher order of magnitude. Adding Jordan as a third country is the geographic lever the IRGC pulled to demonstrate escalation capacity without raising the sortie count to levels its depleted magazine cannot sustain.

The Patriot depletion problem created a structural incentive: Bahrain's PAC-3 magazine sat at 87 per cent depletion , meaning the IRGC could probe an intercept stack it knew was near-empty. Saudi Arabia's exclusion from the emergency Patriot waiver left a visible gap the IRGC could plan around. The salvo was therefore not simply retaliatory but opportunistic: it targeted the weakest defensive sector in the Gulf at the moment the IRGC had the political justification to fire.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Jordan's inclusion on the IRGC target list transforms the conflict's geographic boundary: Tehran has now demonstrated willingness to strike a non-Abraham Accords Arab state that was not directly involved in US-Iran hostilities, signalling that any state hosting US forces is inside Iran's declared deterrence perimeter.

  • Risk

    Bahrain's PAC-3 magazine at 87 per cent depletion means a second salvo at Fifth Fleet headquarters within the 18-month resupply window would face a materially thinner defensive layer, increasing the probability of base penetration in any follow-on IRGC strike.

Sources:Al Jazeera·Jerusalem Post
Mentions:Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →US Fifth Fleet →Ali Al Salem Air Base →Azraq airbase →PAC-3 MSE →MQ-9 Reaper →Jordan →Bahrain →Kuwait →Jerusalem Post →Trita Parsi →Qatar →Iran →Decentralised Mosaic Defence →Tehran →Saddam Hussein →Yom Kippur War →IISS →Kuwait International Airport →Gulf War →Saudi Arabia →Iraq →Abraham Accords →Israel →F-35 →Shahed-136 →
First Reported In

Update #123 · Trump orders strikes on Iranian soil

Al Jazeera· 10 Jun 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
US strikes four Iranian sites near Hormuz
IRGC's three-country retaliation was a direct military response to the CENTCOM strikes on Iranian soil.
Occurred 9 Jun 2026
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IRGC salvo hits two Gulf states at once
The 10 June three-country IRGC salvo escalated the 5 June two-country seven-missile barrage (ID:3939) by adding Jordan as a new target geography.
Occurred 5 Jun 2026
Read story →
Bahrain's missile shield runs near empty
Bahrain's PAC-3 magazine at 87 per cent depletion (ID:3972) was the defensive context in which the IRGC barrage hit the Fifth Fleet headquarters.
Occurred 5 Jun 2026
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This Event
Iran hits US bases in three countries
Adding Jordan to the target list widens Iran's retaliation to a third host country, pressuring Arab governments rather than inflicting casualties.
Led to
Brent jumps as Iran fires from empty coffers
The IRGC retaliatory strikes on US bases repriced Hormuz risk overnight, reversing the week's deal-optimism discount in Brent crude.
Occurred 10 Jun 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Hizballah
Hizballah
Has not commented on the US Treasury's 20 August designation of ten people, including named couriers, over a cash network Treasury says moved money to it from the IRGC-Qods Force. ACLED recorded a sharp rise in attacks around it the same day.
Kuwait
Kuwait
Kuwait's Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Khaled al-Shriaan, co-chaired the 16th US-Kuwait Joint Military Commission at the Pentagon on 21 August. Kuwait has not published what was agreed; only a summary of the meeting's existence and attendees is sourced.
Qatar
Qatar
Has not commented publicly on the $4.5bn KC-46A tanker Foreign Military Sale notification the State Department approved on 20 August. The notification opens a sale process; Doha has not confirmed whether it will proceed to a signed transfer.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Told a Baghdad business meeting on 20 August that Iran will not endure a hungry population regardless of its military strength, against 87.9% point-to-point inflation and 128.1% food inflation for Tir. His fellow Majlis Economic Committee member Samsami separately warned a petrol price rise would ignite unrest.
US Navy
US Navy
Signed a $22.9bn, seven-year contract with Raytheon on 17 August to raise Tomahawk output from about 60 a year to more than 1,000. The Acting Navy Secretary, quoted via an X post, framed it as the "Arsenal of Freedom" initiative; it replaces the 850 missiles fired by 1 April in about ten months at the new rate.
UK Maritime Trade Operations
UK Maritime Trade Operations
UKMTO logged six armed men boarding a tanker 136 nautical miles east of Al Mukalla on 20 August and redirecting it toward Somalia. A vessel steered toward the Somali coast reads as an attempted seizure, a distinct hazard from the stand-off strikes the same lane has seen before.