Iranian missile salvoes and US-Saudi strikes shatter brief Middle East lull
Joint air strikes hit Tehran-backed militia sites in Iraq after dozens of drone and missile attacks across the region
Jordan’s air defences intercepted five missiles launched from Iran early on Wednesday, the country’s military said, hours after the US military said it had knocked down an Iranian missile barrage launched against American forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting.
The Jordanian military said the missiles had been “intercepted and destroyed”. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency carried a statement from the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard saying the Guard’s Aerospace Force fired ballistic missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and the headquarters of the US military’s Central Command in Jordan.
Hours earlier, the US Central Command said its forces “remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness”, and that they had also worked with Saudi Arabia’s forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days.
In announcing the strikes in Iraq, the US warned that further attacks on American troops or Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure risked additional action.
The renewed hostilities sent oil prices spiking. Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 3.1 per cent to US$84.58 a barrel.
The United States and Iran had experienced a period of calm, during which neither announced attacks for about three days following weeks of escalation over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf waterway and narrow chokepoint through which 20 per cent of the world’s traded oil normally flows.