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Another U.S. Service Member Is Killed as Iran War Expands
The Pentagon said a service member was killed in northern Iraq while troops disposed of an Iranian drone. It also said “unidentified remains” were found in Jordan, where an earlier attack had left two soldiers dead and another missing.
Published July 19, 2026Updated July 21, 2026Aaron BoxermanYan ZhuangHari Raj and Eric Schmitt
Here’s the latest.
The Pentagon said on Sunday that a third member of the American military had died during a weekend of intense exchanges of attacks with Iran, as the war escalated and the United States began sending more warplanes to the Middle East.
The soldier was killed in northern Iraq during the disposal of a downed Iranian attack drone on Saturday, the Pentagon said. There was no sign of diplomacy between the two sides, and the U.S. military said Sunday evening Eastern time that it had begun conducting a new wave of strikes against Iran for the ninth consecutive night.
American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the United States was sending more military jets to the Middle East, a move that was in the works even before the recent deaths.
The fatalities raised to 17 the number of U.S. military personnel confirmed to have been killed in the war. On Friday, two soldiers were killed in an Iranian missile barrage in Jordan that left another soldier missing. A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said on Sunday that remains recovered at scene were believed to be those of the missing soldier.
The deaths came during a week of spiraling attacks by both sides that have sent global oil prices rising and have also hit sensitive infrastructure in the Middle East, including bridges and water facilities. Infrastructure that civilians rely on to survive are generally not considered legitimate military targets, and striking them could be considered a war crime.
The U.S. military said early Sunday that it had attacked Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps forces responsible for striking U.S. forces in Jordan.
Iran retaliated with strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, countries where the United States maintains a significant military presence. In recent days, Iranian attacks have damaged an oil facility and power as well as water treatment plants in Kuwait, according to the Kuwaiti authorities.
Jordan’s air defenses shot down three Iranian missiles, the Jordanian military said, while a fourth landed in an unpopulated area. Video verified by The New York Times showed a plume of smoke rising over King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, just across the border with Israel.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said after the attack in Jordan that the loss of the U.S. soldiers “only stiffens our resolve.” But the attacks seemed likely to deepen President Trump’s dilemma over how to move ahead with the war against Iran he began alongside Israel more than four months ago.
Here’s what else to know:
Troop deaths: The latest confirmed U.S. death happened when a soldier was struck by fragments or debris from the controlled detonation of a drone, the U.S. official said. The strikes in Jordan and Iraq were the first deadly attacks on U.S. personnel since the two sides reached a cease-fire last month.
Ships disabled: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Monday that two oil tankers had “exploded and were forced to cease movement” as they attempted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz via a route that Tehran has warned ships not to use. The Guards did not claim responsibility for strikes on the ships.
Aircraft deployment: U.S. officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss operational matters said on Sunday that Air Force F-16 fighter jets from Germany and F-35 jets from Britain were being sent to the Middle East. Additional aerial refueling aircraft were also on the way, according to the officials.
Jordan in focus: The Iranian attacks on Jordan underlined the Arab nation’s growing strategic importance as a host for U.S. forces. Read more ›
After a brief respite, the price of gas is back on the rise.
On Monday, the average price at the pump in the United States climbed to $4 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, as the war with Iran reignited, halting most shipping and pinching already-depleted global refineries.
The price has surged 13 cents higher from a week ago, in a return to the elevated prices seen this spring.
July 20, 2026, 2:12 a.m. ETKuwait’s military said on Monday morning that it was intercepting drone attacks from Iran. The authorities in Bahrain said they had activated warning sirens, without saying what set them off.
July 20, 2026, 2:02 a.m. ETTop U.S. and Iranian diplomats signal a willingness to talk.
The top U.S. and Iranian diplomats signaled separately that they remained open to negotiating even as the two sides traded strikes on Monday, more than a week into a spiraling escalation in their war.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said the country had “emerged as a significant interactional actor” from the war, which began in February, and had demonstrated its “resilience.” His comments sought to portray Tehran as having gained from the conflict despite the heavy loss of life and damage inflicted by months of punishing U.S. and Israeli strikes.
“The right time to negotiate is exactly when you have achieved reliable battlefield and strategic gains,” Mr. Araghchi said, according to remarks published by IRNA, the state broadcaster. He also warned against taking “risks with people’s lives and the fate of the entire country.”
Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesman, said at a news conference that Tehran had received proposals from mediators who were “trying to prevent an escalation of tensions,” though he declined to provide details.
Even as Iranian forces were actively countering U.S. attacks, he said, “diplomacy also knows its duties well and spares no efforts.”
His comments came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was still willing to pursue diplomacy without disclosing new details.
“Their behavior has to change in order for ours to change,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, before he departed for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila.
Still, after more than a week of escalating strikes that shattered the cease-fire the two sides had reached last month, there were no imminent signs of talks. Tehran and Washington have both sought to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for global oil and gas supplies, though the attacks in recent days have widened to include infrastructure in the Middle East, including bridges and water facilities.
As U.S. forces launched a ninth night of attacks against Iran on Sunday, Mr. Rubio accused Tehran of striking more ships that day. Iran’s attacks on vessels traversing the Strait of Hormuz violated the terms of the memorandum of understanding that Washington and Tehran had signed in June, he said.
Tehran has interpreted that deal to mean that it alone can determine which route ships take through the strait. Iran has struck vessels that have sought to use an alternate route close to Oman’s coastline.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Monday that two oil tankers had “exploded and were forced to cease movement” after trying to traverse the Strait of Hormuz via a route that Tehran had warned ships not to take. The Guards did not directly claim responsibility for the strikes. A British navy monitoring agency said earlier on Monday that a vessel was on fire off the coast of Oman.
Mr. Rubio, responding to a question about President Trump’s canceled plan to charge a fee for guiding ships through the strait, called on other countries to step up. It was “not the United States’ job to protect shipping for the entire planet forever,” he said.
“Other countries need to begin to step up and provide — whether it’s hardware or finances — to help carry that burden,” Mr. Rubio added.
Show moreJuly 19, 2026, 10:50 p.m. ETIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Monday that two oil tankers had been disabled after they tried to traverse the Strait of Hormuz via a route that Tehran has warned ships not to use. “Both vessels exploded and were forced to cease movement,” the Guards said in a statement, without providing details or directly claiming responsibility for strikes on the ships. United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a monitoring group, earlier reported a vessel on fire off the coast of Oman.
July 19, 2026, 10:26 p.m. ETThe U.S. military said it had completed another round of strikes against Iran on Sunday night, marking the ninth consecutive night of attacks. U.S. forces’ targets included Iranian military command centers, surveillance sites, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks, Central Command said on social media.
July 19, 2026, 8:38 p.m. ETThe U.S. Embassy in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, said early Monday that it had “information to suggest that Iran may seek to target unspecified locations in central Manama” and urged Americans to “remain vigilant.” Earlier, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry warned residents to head to safe spaces while sirens were sounding but provided no other details. The embassy’s warning came soon after the U.S. military said it was attacking Iran.
A vessel was on fire early Monday local time about eight nautical miles off of the coast of Oman, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a monitoring group run by the British navy. The cause of the fire has not yet been verified, the agency said, noting it had receved the information from unspecified “military authorities” and advising vessels “to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity” while the incident was being investigated. The warning from the maritime authority came shortly after the U.S. military said it was launching attacks on Iran for the ninth consecutive night and Iranian state media reported firing missiles at “enemy targets.”
July 19, 2026, 7:21 p.m. ETU.S. Central Command said on Sunday evening that it had begun conducting a new wave of strikes against Iran for the ninth consecutive night to degrade “Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
July 19, 2026, 6:56 p.m. ETKuwaiti air defenses were intercepting drone attacks by Iran, the Kuwaiti military said on social media early Monday local time. Sirens have also sounded in Bahrain, according to its Interior Ministry.
July 19, 2026, 5:37 p.m. ETThe U.S. military said that forces implementing the renewed blockade against Iranian ports, which began again on Tuesday, had as of Sunday redirected six commercial vessels and disabled one to ensure “full compliance.” The blockade was reinstated amid escalating hostilities with Iran, just a few weeks after the two sides reached a truce. During the initial American blockade, from April 13 to June 18, U.S. Central Command said that its forces had “redirected” more than 140 vessels and disabled nine ships that had attempted to get past the blockade.
July 19, 2026, 4:08 p.m. ETIran shipped billions in oil during the cease-fire.
With the mid-June truce between Iran and the United States unraveling, Iran could be aided by the billions of dollars it took in as it shipped oil out of the country after that deal. That money will be a strategic advantage for Iran’s leadership if the two countries return to open warfare.
As part of the June deal, the United States gave Iran two major concessions: It lifted its naval blockade, allowing Iranian ships to move oil out of the country, and granted an exemption to U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales.
The Trump administration revoked that sanctions waiver on July 7, after three tankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran had already moved quickly to get its ships through the strait and headed toward Asia, where it has long had a network of buyers for its illicit oil sales.
Here’s what we know about Iran’s oil shipments:
Oil is an economic lifeline for Iran.
Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz accounted for about 80 percent of total Iranian exports before the United States started blocking its ships. The blockade trapped more than 1.5 million barrels of Iranian oil a day.
When the United States lifted the blockade, Iran rushed some 45 million to 50 million barrels out of the country, analysts estimated. Those barrels are worth billions — giving Iran a much-needed cash infusion for its ravaged economy.
Iran’s ‘shadow fleet’ helps it evade sanctions.
Countries under oil-sales restrictions use so-called ghost fleet ships to move their wares to buyers. Such ships use physical and bureaucratic camouflage, like flying false flags and turning off their location transponders, to hide their movements and their ownership.
Iran has for years sold most of its oil to China’s so-called teapot refineries. They are a collection of small, private businesses that operate without official government permission, and are among the few buyers willing to risk the consequences of flouting America’s sanctions in exchange for deeply discounted rates.
The Trump administration’s waiver of sanctions on Iran last month — which have now been reinstated — was a huge win for Iran’s leadership. It allowed the country to sell its oil at market prices.
The blockade was reimposed on July 14. Successfully enforcing it requires a huge military commitment.
Iran needs the profits from those oil sales.
Selling its exported oil has raised much-needed cash for the Iranian government as its conflict with the United States escalates. The war’s costs and physical destruction pushed Iran’s already struggling economy into a free fall, and the prices of everyday essentials like food and medicine have soared.
As U.S. sanctions again cut Iran’s chief export off from the world economy, the tens of millions of barrels of oil heading toward Asia are a valuable asset for the Iranian regime.
Show moreJuly 19, 2026, 4:02 p.m. ETNational security correspondentThe service member killed during the disposal of an Iranian drone in Iraq on Saturday was not a bomb technician but another soldier who was hit by debris or fragments when the drone was detonated, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The incident is under investigation, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss operational matters publicly.
July 19, 2026, 3:55 p.m. ETA U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the remains recovered at the scene of a deadly Iranian attack on a military base in Jordan on Friday were believed to be those of a U.S. soldier who has been missing since the strike, which also killed two soldiers. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Pentagon was waiting a positive identification by an armed forces medical examiner at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
July 19, 2026, 3:32 p.m. ETAn American service member was killed in action on Saturday during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone in northern Iraq, the United States Central Command on Sunday. It was the 17th death of a member of the U.S. military since the war began on Feb. 28.
Another U.S. service member was wounded in the incident and was receiving treatment for a minor injury, the military said in a statement. The announcement came a day after the military said that two U.S. soliders had been killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan. That attack left a third U.S. service member missing, and U.S. Central Command said on Sunday that remains found at the scene of that strike were being examined.
July 19, 2026, 2:19 p.m. ETJoseph Aoun, Lebanon’s president, met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Sunday to discuss the framework agreement with Israel that was brokered by the United States last month.
The joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February reignited the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group in southern Lebanon, and the agreement was meant to be a step toward peace, even though Hezbollah was not part of the talks and the fighting has continued. More than 4,300 people have been killed in the conflict since March, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Aoun said in a statement that he and Rubio had discussed the need for the U.S. to increase support for Lebanon’s economy and military, which under the agreement is supposed to assert control of territory in southern Lebanon that Israel has seized in recent months. Rubio said that the U.S. was committed to Lebanon’s effort to “reclaim their country.”
July 19, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ETIsrael watches tensely as the U.S.-Iran fighting escalates.
So far, Israel has remained on the sidelines of the mounting clashes between Iran and the United States over the past week. The question is whether that will last if the escalation worsens.
President Trump launched the war on Iran alongside Israel in late February, with the two militaries working more closely than ever before. But as the war dragged on, Mr. Trump increasingly parted ways with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on how to prosecute the campaign — and whether to continue it at all.
That divergence was evident last month, as Israel and Iran traded attacks for the first time since an April truce. Mr. Trump called Mr. Netanyahu and told him to stop escalating Israel’s attacks, arguing that the United States was close to reaching a deal with Iran, according to multiple officials briefed on the call.
Bucking Israeli opposition, Mr. Trump did end up signing an agreement with Iran last month to stop fighting and negotiate a broader end to the conflict. But the cease-fire was short-lived, and the United States and Iran have since returned to an escalating cycle of strikes and counter-strikes.
Since that cease-fire, however, Iranian forces have not directly bombarded Israel, a move that would likely herald a return to full-blown war. Last week, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to inflict massive damage against Iran if attacked.
“I will say this to the leaders of Iran: Do not count on it being quiet if you attack us,” he said at a conference in southern Israel, adding that Israel’s retaliation would be “much more powerful” than during the war earlier this year.
Nonetheless, the fighting has crept noticeably closer to Israel’s borders over the past week.
On Sunday, Israeli forces fired interceptor rockets amid an incoming Iranian barrage for the first time in several weeks. The attack was aimed at the neighboring country of Jordan, but the military said it had to shoot “missile debris” out of the sky to prevent it from landing in Israeli territory.
Israeli analysts say the Mr. Netanyahu has reasons — both political and personal — to resume the war.
The Israeli leader now faces hotly contested national elections this October. Voters could head to the polls with the war, which many Israelis view as having mixed results or even as an abject failure, still hanging overhead.
Many of Mr. Netanyahu’s lofty war aims — which included eliminating Iran’s nuclear program and laying the groundwork to topple the Islamic Republic — remain very much unfinished.
Iran’s leadership emerged from the conflict battered but with its grip on power intact. Its nuclear program and ballistic missile apparatus resisted Israeli and American efforts to wipe them out. And the deal Mr. Trump negotiated did not even touch Iran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other anti-Israel proxy militias across the Middle East.
But Mr. Netanyahu must also balance those concerns with appeasing Mr. Trump, for whom the war quickly became an unpopular headache with no clear offramp. By resuming the war without Mr. Trump’s say-so, Mr. Netanyahu would risk compromising Israel’s ties with its most important ally.
Show moreJuly 19, 2026, 1:46 p.m. ETA small plume of smoke rose above King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, Jordan, on Sunday in video filmed from across the border in Eilat, Israel, and verified by The New York Times. Air raid sirens were heard across Jordan earlier in the day, and the Jordanian military said later that three Iranian missiles had been intercepted while a fourth fell in a remote area.
The U.S. is sending more warplanes to the Middle East, officials say.
The United States was sending more warplanes to the Middle East, according to American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Sunday, another sign the Trump administration may soon further escalate its strikes against Iran.
Air Force F-16 fighter jets from Germany and stealthy F-35 jets from Britain were being sent to the Middle East, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss operational matters. Additional aerial refueling aircraft were also on the way.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, declined to comment on the deployments.
The redeployment of the aircraft had already been ordered before an Iranian attack on Friday that killed two Army soldiers, left another U.S. service member missing, and injured many others in Jordan. That attack continued a weeklong pattern of strikes and counter-strikes, and prompted retaliation by the United States that the military said was in part to “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces.”
Even before those strikes, President Trump signaled that he planned to increase attacks on Iran in the coming week, and intended to hit more Iranian infrastructure, including bridges, electrical power plants and distribution systems.
It was not immediately clear where all the additional warplanes would be stationed, but an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Saturday said the United States had decided to place some additional aerial refueling aircraft at Israeli Air Force bases.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
Show moreJuly 19, 2026, 12:19 p.m. ETAs Washington and Tehran escalate their attacks, civilians in Iran’s embattled south fear the growing cost they may pay. U.S. bombardment has not only battered Iranian military targets, but destroyed roads and infrastructure, said Reza, a 58-year-old retiree in Bushehr province, who gave only his first name out of fear of government retaliation. The destruction only adds to an already difficult reality, he said.
At a time when temperatures are running over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, residents are dealing with daily powercuts and water outages every other day, he said. “Much of the world is so immersed in their own lives,” he said, “that the destruction happening in Iran no longer seems important to them.”
July 19, 2026, 11:17 a.m. ETReporting from Amman, JordanJordan, a close U.S. ally, is increasingly in Iran’s cross hairs.
Iran has been increasingly targeting Jordan with attacks like the one on Friday that killed two U.S. service members. The reason, analysts said, is that Jordan has been playing a more central role in U.S. military operations against Iran.
The U.S. and Jordan have long cooperated on military, intelligence and counterterrorism and Jordan hosts major U.S. air bases. U.S. officials say Washington increasingly relied on Jordan in the run-up to and the early days of the war against Iran, as the Pentagon shifted a number of troops from the Gulf Arab nations of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to relatively more secure locations in Jordan and neighboring Israel.
Jordan’s role grew as other American allies in the region restricted Washington’s ability to base troops in and fly aircraft over their territories, the U.S. officials said.
But unlike the resource-rich Gulf-nations, Jordan relies heavily on the U.S. for foreign aid and is not in a strong position to deny Washington’s wishes.
Omid Memarian, an Iran analyst at DAWN, a Washington-based think tank focused on the Middle East, said on Sunday that he imagined Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia “are now even more hesitant to let the U.S. broadly use their bases to attack Iran,” after Iran retaliated against them. “But Jordan, because of its security agreement with the U.S. and the very one-sided, dominant relationship Washington has with Jordan, would not be in a position to say no.”
On Sunday, Jordan evacuated the international airport and seaport in the coastal city of Aqaba after a “specific and credible threat,” the U.S. embassy there said. The country’s air defenses later shot down three Iranian missiles that targeted the country, the Jordanian military said, while a fourth landed in an unpopulated area.
During the first phase of the war, Iran focused more heavily on retaliation against Israel and on Gulf Arab countries that assisted the United States. But now that the conflict has entered a new phase, with the U.S.-Iran cease-fire steadily unraveling, the military picture appears to have changed.
On Friday, an Iranian attack on a military base in Jordan killed two U.S. soldiers and left another service member missing, according to American officials. It was the fourth attack last week on U.S. forces in Jordan, which left dozens of U.S. soldiers wounded and damaged a number of helicopters.
The first attack hit a residential facility at King Faisal Air Base, wounding as many as five U.S. service members. The second hit a base in eastern Jordan, damaging a number of U.S. Blackhawk helicopters.
Two days later, the officials said, Iranian missiles hit the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, a hub for the U.S. Air Force, with a barrage of attacks, wounding about 20 U.S. troops rushing to take cover in bunkers. That base was struck again on Friday, when the two soldiers were killed and four were wounded.
Iran said on Friday it had launched a drone attack targeting fuel tanks at the U.S. base in Azraq, Jordan, as well as missiles and drones to target aircraft shelters, according to Fars News Agency, a semiofficial Iranian news outlet. Previously Iran has said it targeted radar and communications systems used by U.S. forces.
The U.S. military has long operated out of Jordanian air bases and there are nearly 4,000 service members in the country, according to a recent Congressional report.
Earlier this month, Jordan’s army chief Maj. Gen. Yousef Hunaiti and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Daniel Zimmerman met and discussed expanding military and defense cooperation and partnership between the two countries, according to Jordan’s Petra state news agency.
U.S. economic and military aid to Jordan, going back to the 1950s, has tripled over the past 15 years. In the 2025 fiscal year, the U.S. gave Jordan $1.45 billion in economic and military aid, according to the Congressional report.
Corrected on July 19, 2026:An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of aid the U.S. gave Jordan. In the 2025 fiscal year, the U.S. gave Jordan $1.45 billion in economic and military aid, according to a Congressional report, not $33.8 billion.
We acknowledge mistakes in our reporting with corrections. If you spot an error, please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn more.
Show moreJuly 19, 2026, 10:40 a.m. ETThe United States is sending more warplanes to the Middle East, American officials said on Sunday, in a sign that the Trump administration may be preparing to escalate strikes against Iran.
Air Force F-16 fighter jets from Germany and F-35 stealth jets from Britain are being sent to the Middle East, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. Additional aerial refueling aircraft are also on the way.
U.S. Central Command declined to comment on the deployments.
The additional aircraft were ordered to be sent to the region before an Iranian attack on Friday killed two Army soldiers, left another missing, and injured many others in Jordan.
Leo Sands and Leily Nikounazar
Iran’s state broadcaster reported on Sunday that U.S. missiles had struck the outskirts of Abadan, a city in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province. State media later said that the explosions were caused by friendly fire.
The U.S Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
July 19, 2026, 10:13 a.m. ETLeo Sands
Breaking news reporterThe U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Sunday that it was seeking more information about what Iran said was an attack on the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in southwestern Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the facility was in the “very early stages of construction” and that any attack was likely to pose no radiological risk, hours after the Iranian authorities said it had been hit by projectiles amid U.S. strikes. The U.N. agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, reiterated his calls for all warring parties to restrain from military activity near any nuclear-related site.
July 19, 2026, 9:05 a.m. ETThe Jordanian military said it had shot down three Iranian ballistic missiles on Sunday, in the latest attack targeting the country over recent days. A fourth missile fell in an open area well away from population centers, the military added.
Air-raid sirens had blared out in Jordan just a few hours after the U.S. embassy there warned of a potential attack on the airport and seaport in the southern city of Aqaba. The Jordanian government denied the U.S. statement, but an Iranian missile attack followed swiftly. There were no reports of casualties or damage, the Jordanian military said.
July 19, 2026, 8:35 a.m. ETWarning sirens sounded across Amman, the Jordanian capital, on Sunday afternoon, signaling incoming attacks.
The sirens began shortly after the Israeli military said Iran had launched missiles toward Aqaba, a city in southern Jordan. Earlier, the Jordanian authorities had disputed a claim by the U.S. embassy in the country that the airport and seaport in Aqaba had been evacuated because of a “credible threat.”
July 19, 2026, 8:22 a.m. ETThe Israeli military said that Iran had launched missiles toward Aqaba in southern Jordan, hours after Jordanian officials had disputed a U.S. warning that the city’s international airport and seaport had been evacuated because of a “specific and credible threat.” The Israeli military said air-raid sirens may sound in southern Israel, which borders Aqaba, due to “spillover” from the attack.
Jordan has come under intensifying Iranian attacks in recent days, with Iranian officials saying that they are targeting military facilities used by U.S. forces in the country.
July 19, 2026, 8:09 a.m. ETReporting from Dubai, the United Arab EmiratesThe Kuwaiti authorities said that Iran attacked a power and water desalination plant for the second time in two days, and urged residents to conserve electricity.
Persian Gulf countries rely heavily on desalination technology to produce drinking water, and the infrastructure has been seen as one of the most vulnerable military targets in the region.
Iran has said that its attacks on Gulf Arab countries have targeted U.S. military bases and soldiers, rather than civilians.
Breaking news reporterReporting from Jerusalem