US troops killed as Iran expands Gulf attacks

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SMOKE billows near an oil facility in Mangaf, Kuwait, after a drone attack.—Reuters
SMOKE billows near an oil facility in Mangaf, Kuwait, after a drone attack.—Reuters

• Two American personnel killed in Jordan, another missing in action
• US strikes Iranian military targets for seventh straight night
• Iran threatens full-scale offensive if strikes continue
• Mojtaba says Trump’s signature worthless after repeated breaches
• Kuwait comes under sustained missile, drone attacks; desalination plant hit
• Saudi early warning system issues alerts for two towns

DUBAI: Iran launched more attacks on Washington’s Gulf allies and Jordan on Saturday after a seventh straight night of US strikes on Iranian military targets, while US military said two of its personnel were killed in Jordan and another was missing after an Iranian attack.

Iran’s supreme leader said Washington would pay for “seeking to incite war” as Tehran threatened a “full-scale offensive”.

The US and Iran have intensified attacks since an interim ceasefire deal signed a month ago fell apart last week, raising the possibility of a return to all-out war.

US Central Command said the deaths of the two US personnel occurred on Friday. It said a third US service member was missing in action.

In a written statement carried by the official social media accounts of Iran’s supreme leader and Iranian state media, Mojtaba Khamenei said repeated US breaches of the interim deal had shown that President Donald Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility”.

“Now that the American enemy is seeking to escalate the conflict thereby incurring even heavier costs and further humiliation, it should know that the noble nation of Iran and the Resistance Front have unforgettable lessons in store for it,” the statement said.

Kuwait came under sustained attack, with a desalination plant hit and operations at Kuwait International Airport suspended due to repeated missile and drone threats.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had struck a US military support centre at Camp Arifjan and destroyed a radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation later said one of its oil facilities had been hit in “repeated Iranian attacks”, causing significant damage and some injuries, according to the state news agency.

Kuwait’s armed forces said they had intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles and drones early on Saturday, adding that a number of firefighters and oil sector workers had been injured while responding to the attacks.

“Iran will no longer limit itself to retaliatory, like-for-like responses… and no political border will be safe,” said Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a senior military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, according to state media.

He said Tehran would resume “full-scale offensive operations” if US strikes continued in the coming days.

‘Savagery of the US military’

Iran was responding to US attacks on bridges, power facilities and other infrastructure.

“Since there is no international institution to prevent the savagery of the US military, we have no path before us except the Quranic command: ‘Whoever attacks you, attack them in the same manner’,” the IRGC said in a statement warning US allies in the region to expect more strikes.

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 injured in US strikes on the country over the past three weeks.

US air strikes early on Saturday killed three people and wounded eight others in the southern Hormozgan province, which borders the Strait of Hormuz, while two bridges and a road tunnel were damaged, state TV reported.

The US carried out further air strikes in the same province on Saturday afternoon, the semi-official Fars news agency said, quoting provincial authorities, but there were no reports of civilian casualties.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei accused the United States of seeking control over the strait.

He also stressed that the US broadcasting images of destroyed Iranian infrastructure erodes its moral standing.

Earlier, the US military’s Central Command said it had completed its seventh consecutive day of strikes by hitting Iranian surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage and maritime capabilities.

Strikes in Bahrain, Jordan, S. Arabia

As well as hitting Kuwait, the IRGC targeted a site in Bahrain where US combat aircraft were gathered at Sheikh Isa Air Base and an intelligence data centre, Iranian media said.

The Guards also destroyed at least two US fighter aircraft and three other aircraft during a missile and drone attack early on Saturday on the US base in Al Azraq, Jordan, according to Iranian state TV.

The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, condemned the latest attacks, saying they constituted “war crimes requiring international accountability and prosecution, given the deliberate targeting of infrastructure and civilian facilities”.

Saudi Arabia’s early warning system issued alerts early on Saturday urging residents of Al-Kharj and Yanbu to seek shelter. Al-Kharj, east of Riyadh, is home to a military base that hosts US troops, while Yanbu, on the Red Sea, has a key oil export terminal.

Two people briefed on the matter said an Iranian missile attack, the first on Saudi Arabia in more than three months, had triggered the alerts. Saudi state media did not say what had prompted the alerts. The IRGC also made no mention of any attack on Saudi Arabia.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

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