Three US service members were killed when an Iranian missile struck their sleeping quarters at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on 17 July, according to the Pentagon. The victims were identified as First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25; Sergeant Angel S. Rampersad, 28; and Private Isabella Gonzales, 19. A fourth service member, Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, died in a separate incident in Erbil, Iraq, during the controlled detonation of an Iranian drone. President Donald Trump attended a dignified transfer ceremony for the four at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, alongside Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Speaking with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House on 21 July, Trump openly blamed Jordan for the deaths. “Iran memasukkan sesuatu ke wilayah Yordania,” Trump said, as quoted by Middle East Monitor. “Hal itu tidak akan terjadi jika pasukan atau personel AS yang memiliki wewenang. Ketika Anda membiarkan orang lain melakukan pekerjaan Anda, segalanya tidak selalu berjalan dengan baik,” he added. The remarks came hours after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had killed a number of US soldiers in Jordan and destroyed a radar system. The IRGC also accused Defence Secretary Hegseth of failing to disclose the full casualty count.

Analysts cited in the reporting described the attack as evidence that Iran retains significant military capability despite sustained US strikes. Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, told Al Jazeera that “kemampuan militer Iran tetap tangguh. Mereka pulih lebih cepat dari yang diperkirakan.” She added that Iran’s strikes have become more precise over time, “kemungkinan dengan bantuan intelijen Rusia dan China.” Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, noted that around 50,000 US troops operate from exposed fixed bases within range of Iran’s increasingly sophisticated missile and drone arsenal. He said that semi-permanent facilities designed to protect against rockets and mortars are vulnerable to precision ballistic missiles carrying large warheads.

The Pentagon reported that 100 US service members have been injured since 7 July, with 96 percent having returned to duty. Overall, 18 US personnel have died since the war began in February, according to military figures. Six of those deaths were from a refuelling accident in March and one from a controlled detonation of a fallen drone in Iraq, not from direct Iranian attacks. Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the latest strike appeared to reflect “niat yang lebih besar” by Iran to hit US military assets, suggesting a new pattern of increased intensity.