Iran Retaliates for US Strikes; Washington Denies Losses
Iran said it had struck back at American forces on Thursday in retaliation for the US strikes on its soil, claiming to have hit an air base in Jordan and destroyed three F-35 fighter jets. Central Command flatly denied any losses, saying no US aircraft were damaged and that all missiles and drones were intercepted or failed. A worker was killed when an Iranian strike hit a company building in northern Kuwait, the one confirmed death of the exchange.
The competing accounts — Iran trumpeting a major blow, the United States insisting it suffered none — capture the fog of a war now in its fifth month and spreading across the region. Jordan again said it had shot down five Iranian missiles, and the strike that killed the worker in Kuwait, at a Chinese-owned firm, underlined the danger to the Gulf’s many bystanders. President Trump, speaking at a funeral for Senator Lindsey Graham, promised to hit Iran “very hard”. Neither side’s battlefield claims could be independently verified. Watch for the scale of the US response Mr Trump has threatened.