Iran Has Figured Out How to Overwhelm U.S. Air Defenses
As munitions streaked through the night sky, a plaintive cry like a whale song echoed in the darkness. U.S. troops grabbed their gear and headed for shelter as the warning sirens rang out, a leaked video shows.
The military personnel, clad in a mix of combat fatigues and gym attire, piled into a bunker, huddling in the darkness. βGuys, off the walls if we can,β a woman, likely a medic, advised, warning about the danger of traumatic brain injuries.
The footage, reportedly from Jordanβs Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, where three U.S. troops were killed during Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks on July 17 and 18, offers a glimpse of the dangers faced by U.S. forces across the Middle East.
The attacks are continued demonstrations of Iranβs ability to target U.S. bases across the Middle East and kill U.S. troops, despite months of claims by President Donald Trump and self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iranβs military was annihilated. As this fiction has collapsed, U.S. Central Command has refused to discuss the number and scale of the strikes. βI have nothing for you on that,β Maj. Emma Thompson, the commandβs media operations chief, told The Intercept.
Iran has attacked at least nine U.S. outposts across the Middle East since July 9, according to a U.S. official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press. Several of these bases suffered βsignificantβ damage in the attacks, the source said.
Iranβs military managed to overwhelm U.S. air defense systems using a mix of attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles, according to the official. Numerous factors make the missiles difficult to defeat, the source said: They travel at hypersonic speeds, have complex navigational capabilities including methods to circumvent jamming, and some can be guided or steered.
Stocks of advanced air-defense missiles, like Patriot and THAAD interceptors, are so depleted that U.S. forces are not shooting down all Iranian missiles and drones aimed at U.S. and allied targets across the Middle East, the official said, referencing a Friday report by NBC News that revealed the tactic. The official told The Intercept that the U.S. allows missiles through its defenses only in cases where a strike is judged not to imperil U.S. lives.
The U.S. and its allies burned through more than 11,000 munitions, including large amounts of defensive missiles, in the first 16 days of the war alone, according to a March analysis by the Royal United Services Institute. The report predicted then that U.S. forces wereΒ about a month away from running out of THAAD interceptors. An April report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that βdiminished munitions stockpiles have created a near-term risk.β A follow-up report the next month warned that it would βtake three or more years from today to return to prewar inventory levelsβ of Patriot and THAAD missiles.
Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesperson, said that βPatriot systems have been weakened to such an extent that Iranian missiles and drones are reaching their targets without being intercepted.β He said that during a flurry of attacks from July 8 to July 22, Iran struck numerous air defense and radar installations, including six βPatriot air-defense radars.β
CENTCOM did not reply to a request for comment on the claims by the U.S. official or Mohebbi.
The official confirmed that Iran also recently attacked Tower 22, a U.S. military outpost on the northern Jordanian border with Syria. Satellite images as well as photos and videos circulating online indicate the base suffered extensive damage. (In 2024, a drone attack on Tower 22 by an Iran-backed militia killed three U.S. troops.)Β
Iran says it also attacked U.S. military facilities at Jordanβs Prince Hassan Air Base, King Faisal Air Base,Β and Al-Azraq Air Base; Kuwaitβs Al-Adiri base, Ahmed Al-Jaber Air Base, Camp Doha, Ali Al Salem Air Base, and Camp Arifjan; Naval Support Activity Sheikh Isa in Bahrain; and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
Thompson refused to confirm Iranian attacks on various U.S. bases across the Middle East. βWe donβt comment on battle damage assessments,β she said.
Iran has fired between 8,000 and 9,000 drones and missiles at targets across the Middle East since the U.S.βIsraeli war began in February, according to the official. Iranβs Islamic Revolution Guard Corps recently warned residents of countries that host American forces to keep at least 1,650 feet away from any buildings housing U.S. personnel. The group is also fielding crowdsourced information on βnew locations of the American occupying forcesβ from people in these countries.
The IRGC specifically mentioned βcovert and secretβ facilities in a statement posted on their website. CIA sites in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the region were reportedly struck, possibly with Russian assistance, according to Reuters. A former Pentagon consultant with ties to the defense industry told The Intercept that Russia has certainly provided βtargeting supportβ to Iran during the conflict but did not comment directly on attacks on CIA facilities.
Despite TrumpβsΒ insistence that Russia and China are βnot participatingβ in the Iran war, Hegseth recently said both are βenabling some of the things Iran is doing.β In March, CIA DirectorΒ John Ratcliffe told senators that the βIranians are requesting intelligence assistance from Russia, from China and from other adversaries of the United States,β but said he would only talk about what they might have provided in a classified setting.
The lethal strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan killed Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas; Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; and Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York. All three soldiers were from air defense units. They were βnot actively engaged in anti-aircraft activityβ during the attacks, according to a different βdefense officialβ who spoke on background because they were not authorized to disclose the information.
An Iranian drone attack on Erbil Air Base, Iraq, on July 18 led to the death of Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and left another soldier injured during what CENTCOM called a βcontrolled detonationβ of the downed aircraft.
In April, Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that βCENTCOM had every possible measure they could to ensure that our troops are protected.β The U.S. official would not address possible failures of force protection measures that led to the most recent deaths, due to operational security. But the official said that Hegsethβs claims βobviously were not true.β They noted that it was no secret that earlier casualties were caused by a lack of sufficient overhead protection, referencing a March 1 drone attack on the U.S. base at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, that killed six troops.
Hundreds of U.S. personnel have been killed or wounded in the war. Months of reporting by The Intercept found the PentagonβsΒ official casualty tally is aΒ grossΒ undercount, which another U.S. government official called a βcasualty cover-up.β
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Qatar said they intercepted attack drones on Monday, two days after the United States abruptly suspended a two-week campaign of airstrikes against Iran amid concern over the dwindling stocks of air defense missiles and a reported dearth of Iranian targets. Trump insisted on Tuesday that there had been some βvery good talksβ with Iran but failed to offer evidence when confronted with Iranian denials.
Saudi Arabia said on Monday that the drone attacks it suffered were βcarried out by Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq.β On Tuesday, Jordanian authorities said they downed a drone in the east of the country, near its border with Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
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