ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Jordanian armed forces said Thursday their air defenses had engaged missiles fired from Iran, as hostilities between Tehran and Washington entered a third consecutive day.
The Hashemite Kingdom's forces "intercepted and shot down eight missiles launched from Iran toward Jordanian territory," Amman's state-run Petra news agency reported.
Jordan's government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani said the missiles "were intercepted and dealt with." He added in a statement on X that his country's forces "are deploying all their efforts to safeguard the nation's security and the safety of its citizens."
The US embassy in Amman also confirmed the detection of "missiles, drones, or rockets" in Jordanian airspace, advising in a statement that people should "take shelter for protection until further notice."
The development comes as Iran and the United States have been locked in an escalation marked by intermittent exchanges since Tuesday.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Thursday its forces have struck approximately 170 targets in Iran, including 90 in the early hours of the day that hit "air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities, and military logistics infrastructure along Iran's coastline."
A day earlier, US forces struck approximately 80 Iranian military targets - "including more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] small boats," the Command said.
According to CENTCOM, the military action is in response to Iran "violating the ceasefire by attacking three commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz" and to "further degrade Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners" in the key waterway.
In the span of around 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday, Iranian forces reportedly launched attacks on three commercial vessels transiting Hormuz - the Marshall Islands-flagged Motor Tanker (M/T) Al-Rekayyat, Saudi Arabia-flagged M/T Wedyan, and Liberian-flagged M/T Cyprus Prosperity.
For its part, Iran's IRGC said Thursday that "in the second phase of our response" to the US "aggressions," their aerospace forces on the same day "pounded the enemy's command and control center in West Asia and the enemy airbase in al-Azraq, Jordan, with 10 ballistic missiles," warning that further US airstrikes would be met with "other American bases in the region" coming under attack.
In a separate statement on the same day, the Corps confirmed the killing of at least 11 servicemen in the last two waves of American airstrikes.
A day earlier, the Iranian military said the US launched an "aerial assault on a number of coastal bases and civilian stations on the coasts of the [southern] Hormozgan province and [the city of] Mahshahr,” located in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province as well.
The IRGC added that its "naval and aerospace forces" responded to the escalation, launching "a joint missile and drone operation, crushing 85 important positions and US military facilities" in Bahrain and Kuwait, and downed an American "MQ9 drone that intended to interfere in the operation."
