{"id":551051,"date":"2026-07-30T10:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551051\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:01:16","slug":"jordan-air-defences-down-iran-missiles-conflict-enters-new-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551051\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan air defences down Iran missiles, conflict enters new phase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jordan\u2019s air defences have shot down five missiles launched from Iran, the country’s state-run Petra news agency said, hours after the US military announced it had completed \u201ca heavy wave of strikes against Iran\u201d in response to an earlier Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan.<\/p>\n

No casualties were reported from Jordan’s interception of the missiles, the news agency quoted the spokesman for the country’s armed forces as saying.<\/p>\n

The US Central Command said in a social media post that for over two hours the US had struck \u201cdozens\u201d of targets belonging to Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including military command centres as well as missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance and defence sites.<\/p>\n

The new strikes came hours after US President Donald Trump<\/a> vowed to hit Iran \u201cvery hard\u201d after it targeted a base in Jordan that hosts US troops.<\/p>\n

Iranian state media said two people were wounded in attacks on the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz and that explosions were also reported in Khuzestan province to the northwest.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A man sits on a surfboard as a container ship and other commercial vessels appear anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, July 27, 2026 (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The latest barrage came after the US partnered with Saudi Arabia<\/a> to strike Iran-backed militias<\/a> in neighbouring Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the Egyptian port of Damietta, according to British maritime security firm Ambrey. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

The flare-ups on multiple fronts after several days of relative calm raised the risk of a return to all-out war. It also underscored the difficulty of winding down a five-month conflict that has jolted the world economy and is unpopular among Americans. The fighting was also likely to add to concerns that the US is further drawing down already diminished stockpiles of sophisticated munitions needed to defend its bases and allies.<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US President Donald Trump. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

US and Iran exchange military strikes<\/p>\n

The stop-start fighting between the United States and Iran appears to have entered a new phase as Saudi Arabia has publicly joined military escalations against Tehran<\/a>-backed proxies. At the same time, an already untenable diplomatic effort to end the war has faltered once again as mistrust deepens between the longtime adversaries.<\/p>\n

Despite several days of relative calm, both sides carried out military strikes in the last 24 hours that once again risk a return to all-out war \u2014 and further expansion in the region \u2014 while little is clear about what strategy, if any, American or Iranian officials have for a path forward.<\/p>\n

While President Donald Trump and his allies have spent recent days arguing that Iran is begging to return to the negotiating table, Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister said Tuesday that his country has made no requests to restart the diplomatic track in more than two weeks.<\/p>\n

Following the thwarted attack on the US base in Jordan, Trump turned back to threats Wednesday even while sustaining the prospect of continued talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve already apologised, but, you know, we got to smack them a little bit,\u201d he told reporters in the Oval Office. He added: \u201cIt\u2019s our turn, and we\u2019ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point. But we\u2019re going to hit them very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours later, the strikes followed as the US military said it launched a \u201ca powerful response to yesterday\u2019s attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East\u201d in a social media post. It did not immediately disclose the targets of the attack.<\/p>\n

There’s a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu as the Republican president has vacillated for the past several months between insisting a deal was near to end the war and Tehran’s nuclear programme and then using vulgarities and threats to get Iran to capitulate to US demands \u2014 to no avail.<\/p>\n

Tehran responds with missiles and drones, killing three US military personnel in Jordan.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

The stakes for continued US military action have never been higher for Trump and his party as the conflict, unpopular among many Americans, has jolted the world economy just months before critical midterm elections in November. The renewed fighting also has killed and injured more American troops and been complicated by concerns that the US is further drawing down stockpiles of key air defence systems needed to defend its bases and allies.<\/p>\n

In the past day, Iran said it fired ballistic missiles at Jordan\u2019s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a key US military hub for the region, which Trump said were intercepted. And Saudi Arabia joined the US in striking multiple logistics and weapons sites used by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The first publicly announced joint US-Saudi strikes followed drone attacks on the kingdom, complicating a conflict that now includes nearly every country in the region. A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military operations, said the two attacks were not connected.<\/p>\n

Saudi defence minister makes White House visit<\/p>\n

Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman met separately Wednesday with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorised to comment publicly about the private meeting.<\/p>\n

The defence minister conveyed the view of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, that Iran has lost leverage in Syria and Lebanon but is still managing to provide support to the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq, according to one of the people familiar with Prince Khalid\u2019s talks with Trump and Vance.<\/p>\n

The Iran-aligned Houthi group earlier this week said it fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi oil tanker, days after declaring it was imposing a naval blockade on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

The Saudi decision to join the US attacks against the Iraqi militias was meant to send a message to Iran that it wouldn\u2019t tolerate Iran or its proxies targeting the Saudi oil industry and other critical infrastructure, the person added.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the defence minister underscored to Trump and Vance that the Saudis want to see a de-escalation in the war and want Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations.<\/p>\n

Drone strikes also ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at a port in Egypt, a close US ally and regional mediator that is one of the only countries in the Middle East to have been spared from direct military action during the war. A strike by Iran or its allies, if confirmed, would mark a significant widening of the conflict.<\/p>\n

\"Israeli<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The US-Saudi strikes came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed his first meeting with Trump<\/a> since they launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

An Israeli official briefed on the meeting Tuesday at the White House said Netanyahu assured Trump that it is the US, not Israel, that is in the driver’s seat with Iran, attempting to push back on the notion that he\u2019s increasingly out of step with his closest ally on the way ahead.<\/p>\n

Yet, Israeli officials also have privately expressed concern that Trump, with midterm elections looming, is trying to \u201ckeep this war on a low flame,\u201d according to a person familiar with Netanyahu’s government\u2019s internal deliberations. The person and the Israeli official were not authorised to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

The person added that Israeli officials have become increasingly concerned about Trump\u2019s sensitivity to surging oil prices as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to global energy shipments and about the growing trepidation among some in the US administration about the burn rate of critical missile interceptors.<\/p>\n

The recent fighting with Iran used up more of the US military\u2019s already diminished stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD interceptors, potentially putting American troops at more risk if hostilities resume, according to an analysis released this week from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.<\/p>\n

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told Trump that the state of the munitions stockpile could have an impact on military operations in Iran, according to another US official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations, said the message was delivered as part of Caine\u2019s regular duties of providing military advice and options to Trump.<\/p>\n

A history of failed diplomacy plagues US-Iran prospects<\/p>\n

The Trump administration does not seem to have a strategy to resume negotiations with Iran over ending the conflict.<\/p>\n

Despite efforts by some mediators to get talks restarted \u2014 or at least find a point at which they could begin again \u2014 the administration is not actively pursuing talks at the moment, a senior US official said.<\/p>\n

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the latest developments in the region suggested that any resumption in direct diplomacy was not imminent.<\/p>\n

Secretary of War grilled by senators as the fight for control of the Strait of Hormuz continues.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Analysts called the uncertainty and lack of strategy a result of deep, growing mistrust between Washington and Tehran, especially after an interim ceasefire proposal signed in mid-June collapsed in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said senior Iranian officials were nearly unanimous in their decision to approve that memorandum of understanding with the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now none of them believe that Trump is a reliable negotiating partner,\u201d he said. “The problem, I think, is that Trump also has now the same impression about the Iranians.”<\/p>\n

In some respects, the on-again, off-again nature of talks and back-and-forth military attacks should not be surprising.<\/p>\n

The history of US negotiations with Iran after 1979 is littered with failure, false starts and stops, and military actions that have nonetheless stopped short of the kind of conflict the two countries are now in.<\/p>\n

Despite its flaws, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran secured by the Obama administration was the first major agreement between the two countries since the Algiers Accords in 1981 that ended the American hostage crisis and laid a patchwork path for the resolution of other issues, including the unfreezing of Shah-era Iranian assets seized by the US after the Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n

However, even from the beginning, both sides accused each other of violating the terms of these deals.<\/p>\n

Accusations of violations of the Algiers Accords, which led to a period of great animosity, including US support for Saddam Hussein\u2019s Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, became the norm.<\/p>\n

Despite the semi-rapprochement around the 2015 nuclear deal, Trump\u2019s withdrawal from it in 2018 during his first term, his imposition of a \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d sanctions campaign against Tehran, and the US assassination of Iran\u2019s top military leader Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, sent the relationship to new lows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan\u2019s air defences have shot down five missiles launched from Iran, the country’s state-run Petra news agency said,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,5107,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-551051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}