Iran claims Jordanian soldiers, civilians provided strike intel

Deadly Iranian attacks underscore Jordan’s strategic importance to American military operations across the Middle East.

By World Israel News Staff

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bragged that Jordanian civilians and members of the country’s military and security forces provided intelligence used to target U.S. assets inside Jordan, claiming that individuals within the kingdom assisted Iranian military operations without offering any evidence to support the allegation.

The claim was made in a media statement released shortly after Iran launched a large-scale drone and missile barrage toward Jordan on Sunday, targeting areas where American forces are stationed.

“We thank the residents of Jordan and the soldiers of the Jordanian Army for their cooperation and the precise intelligence you provided, which enabled the precise targeting and destruction of 20 buildings in the area of Al-Azraq Air Base where US soldiers were stationed,” the IRGC claimed in the statement.

Neither Iranian officials nor state media presented evidence to substantiate the allegation, and Jordan has not publicly acknowledged any cooperation between its soldiers and citizens and Iran. The kingdom has long been one of Washington’s closest security partners in the Middle East and hosts U.S. military personnel as part of regional counterterrorism and security operations.

Sunday’s strike came just one day after another Iranian attack on U.S. military assets in Jordan that killed three American servicemen.

David Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who helped plan coalition air operations during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said Jordan’s strategic importance explains why it has become a repeated target of Iranian attacks.

The U.S. Air Force presence in Jordan provides the ability to carry out “more efficient air operations across Syria, Iraq and the broader region,” Deptula told The New York Times.

He added that attacks on Al-Azraq Air Base are intended to pressure Jordan politically as much as they are designed to damage military infrastructure.

Iranian strikes on the installation, he said, are “an attack on the U.S. regional coalition and an attempt to make the political cost of hosting American forces greater than the security benefit.”