Jordan’s air defenses intercepted five missiles launched from Iran early Wednesday, the country’s military said, hours after the U.S. military said it had knocked down an Iranian missile barrage launched against American forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting. In a statement, the Jordanian military said the missiles had been “intercepted and destroyed.” Earlier, U.S. Central Command said they “remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness,” and that it worked with Saudi Arabia’s forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days.
In announcing the strikes in Iraq, the U.S. warned that further attacks on American troops or Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure risked additional action. The United States and Iran had experienced a period of calm, during which neither announced attacks for about three days following weeks of escalation over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf waterway and narrow chokepoint through which 20% of the world’s traded oil normally flows. The fighting flared at the end of a month packed with multiple pressure points on U.S. President Donald Trump. In recent weeks, four U.S. troops died during the fighting, while the Pentagon asked an increasingly skeptical Congress for money to cover the conflict’s ballooning costs.
