For months, the picture emerging from the Iran-U.S. conflict appeared relatively straightforward: Iran would launch missiles and drones at American military positions across the Middle East, U.S. and allied air-defence systems would intercept most of them, and Washington would emphasise that its forces remained operational.
But new details are changing that picture.
Fresh reporting has confirmed that Iranian attacks did manage to inflict significant material damage on U.S. military assets in both Bahrain and Jordan.
In Jordan, an Iranian missile strike damaged multiple American aircraft, including an A-10 attack aircraft that reportedly lost a wing. Around eight F-15 fighter jets also suffered lighter damage.
In Bahrain, the acting U.S. Navy Secretary, Hung Cao, has acknowledged that Iranian attacks caused extensive damage to the U.S. naval facility that serves as the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
The two incidents raise a bigger question: How much damage has Iran actually been able to inflict on America’s military presence in the region?
The Jordan attack: the missiles got through
The most concrete evidence emerged from Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, a strategically important American air installation near the town of Azraq.
The base is a major hub for U.S. air operations in the region, hosting dozens of American aircraft.
On September 8, Iran launched a ballistic-missile attack against the base.
Jordan and U.S. forces responded with a substantial defensive operation. According to reporting citing U.S. officials, American forces fired roughly 30 Patriot interceptor missiles as they attempted to stop the incoming Iranian missiles.
The defence system intercepted many of the incoming missiles.
But not all of them.
And that distinction matters.
According to people with direct knowledge of the incident who spoke to CBS News, one American A-10 Thunderbolt II was struck and lost a wing. Around eight F-15 aircraft sustained light damage, although those aircraft were subsequently returned to service.
Reuters separately confirmed that a U.S. official acknowledged multiple American aircraft were damaged in the attack.
There were no reported American deaths in the attack.
So the Iranian strike was not a destruction of the base. It was not a knockout blow.
But it was also not an attack in which every missile was successfully stopped.
Iran managed to get through the defensive shield and damage American warplanes.
The A-10 that lost its wing
Among the damaged aircraft was the A-10 Thunderbolt II, popularly known as the Warthog.
The aircraft is designed for close air support and has been a longstanding part of U.S. military operations.
According to the reports, the Iranian attack caused severe damage to the aircraft, including the loss of one of its wings.
That makes the incident particularly significant.
The F-15s reportedly sustained lighter damage and were returned to service.
The A-10’s damage was much more serious.
Exactly how the aircraft will be repaired or whether it will return to combat service has not been publicly established in the reporting available so far.
Iran had claimed it hit the base
There is another important part of the story.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed after the attack that it had damaged American aircraft at the Jordanian base.
At first, such claims had to be treated cautiously because Iranian military statements during the conflict have not always been independently verifiable.
But this time, American officials and multiple independent reports have confirmed that American aircraft were indeed damaged.
That gives the Iranian claim considerably more weight than some of Tehran’s earlier battlefield announcements.
Then came Bahrain
While the Jordan incident provides evidence of Iranian missiles physically reaching American aircraft, the situation in Bahrain tells a different and potentially larger story.
Bahrain hosts Naval Support Activity Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
The base is central to America’s naval presence in the Middle East.
It is also strategically important because the Fifth Fleet oversees operations across some of the world’s most sensitive waterways, including the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters.
Iran has repeatedly targeted American positions in the Gulf during the conflict.
Now, one of the highest-ranking American officials involved in the Navy has acknowledged the scale of the damage.
Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao reportedly described the Iranian attacks in unusually blunt terms, saying Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain.”
That statement is significant because it came from a senior U.S. Navy official rather than from Iranian state media.
The damage was serious enough to affect the U.S. Navy’s operations
Cao reportedly said the damage to the Bahrain facility affected the Navy’s ability to use the installation normally.
One particularly revealing detail concerns the USS Abraham Lincoln, the American aircraft carrier that has been deployed in the region.
According to Cao’s account, damage to the Bahrain facility left the carrier’s crew with “no place” to dock.
That suggests the consequences extended beyond damaged buildings.
A military base is not simply a collection of structures.
It is a logistical system.
When command facilities, communications infrastructure, docks or other critical installations are damaged, the effects can spread across an entire military operation.
Satellite images had already hinted at the damage
The public acknowledgement did not appear out of nowhere.
Earlier open-source and satellite-image analyses had already indicated substantial damage to U.S. facilities in Bahrain.
Those analyses reportedly identified damage involving the base’s command headquarters, multiple other structures and satellite communications facilities.
What was missing was an equally clear public acknowledgement from senior American officials about the scale of the damage.
That changed with Cao’s comments.
And that is why the Bahrain revelation matters.
So, did Iran defeat U.S. air defences?
No.
That would be an exaggeration.
The available evidence actually shows that U.S. and allied air-defence systems intercepted a large proportion of the incoming Iranian missiles.
In Jordan, for example, the defensive response involved a large number of Patriot interceptors.
But the fact that many missiles were intercepted does not mean the defence was perfect.
Some got through.
And those that did caused real damage.
This is the crucial distinction.
Iran has not demonstrated that it can simply overwhelm and destroy American bases at will.
But it has demonstrated that it can penetrate American and allied defensive systems under certain circumstances.
The cost of stopping the missiles is becoming another problem
There is another dimension to this story that is receiving increasing attention: the cost of defending against the attacks.
Patriot interceptors are expensive.
Iran can launch comparatively cheaper missiles and drones, forcing the United States and its allies to decide whether to use sophisticated and costly defensive missiles against every incoming threat.
Reuters reported that U.S. forces fired roughly 30 Patriot interceptors during the Jordan attack.
The broader conflict has also placed pressure on America’s stockpile of defensive and precision-guided munitions.
A Reuters report citing estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said approximately 65% of U.S. Patriot interceptors had been expended between February and July, with fewer than 850 reportedly remaining from about 2,330 before the war.
Those figures are estimates rather than publicly disclosed Pentagon inventory numbers, so they should be treated accordingly.
But they illustrate the strategic problem.
The United States may have the world’s most sophisticated military.
Yet even a military with enormous resources has finite ammunition.
Iran is fighting a different kind of war
The emerging pattern also says something about Tehran’s strategy.
Iran does not need to destroy every American aircraft.
It does not necessarily need to destroy an entire U.S. military base.
It can instead attempt to create constant pressure.
Launch enough missiles and drones to force the United States to spend defensive ammunition.
Force aircraft to relocate.
Damage runways, buildings or logistics infrastructure.
Threaten ships.
Disrupt operations.
Make American bases less predictable and less comfortable.
And force Washington to spend enormous amounts of money defending assets that Iran can attack with comparatively cheaper weapons.
That is a classic asymmetric challenge.
The attacks are also spreading across the region
Jordan and Bahrain are not isolated cases.
Iran has launched or claimed attacks against American-linked facilities and assets across the Middle East, including locations in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq. Al Jazeera reported Iranian claims of attacks on U.S.-linked positions in several of these locations.
The conflict has also moved beyond traditional military bases.
The United States and Iran have exchanged attacks involving ships and oil infrastructure around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
The result is a conflict that increasingly threatens not just soldiers and military equipment, but global shipping and energy markets.
Reuters reported that the wider conflict has already pushed crude prices above $100 per barrel, adding another economic dimension to the military confrontation.
What we still don’t know
Despite the new revelations, there are major unanswered questions.
We do not yet have a complete independent assessment of the total damage inflicted on U.S. facilities across the region.
We also do not know the full repair cost of the Bahrain damage.
It remains unclear how long every affected facility will take to return to normal operations.
And while the damage to the A-10 and F-15s in Jordan has been reported by multiple sources, the Pentagon has not publicly provided a comprehensive account of every aircraft affected.
There is also a wider question about how much of the damage from earlier Iranian attacks has not yet been publicly disclosed.
That cannot currently be established from the available evidence.
But the latest disclosures show why that question is being asked.
The bigger story
The most important development may not be that Iran damaged an American aircraft.
It is that the gap between the public perception of the attacks and the emerging evidence is beginning to narrow.
For months, the dominant image was of Iranian missiles being intercepted and American military infrastructure continuing to operate.
Now we know that some Iranian weapons penetrated those defences.
An American A-10 lost a wing.
About eight F-15s sustained damage.
And a senior U.S. Navy official has acknowledged extensive damage to the U.S. Fifth Fleet facility in Bahrain.
None of this means that Iran has defeated the United States militarily.
It does, however, demonstrate something more uncomfortable for Washington:
American military superiority does not make American bases untouchable.
Iran has shown that it can reach American assets, damage expensive aircraft and disrupt the infrastructure supporting U.S. military operations.
And as the war continues, the question may no longer be simply whether Iran can hit U.S. bases.
The question is how often it can do so, how much it costs the United States to stop the attacks, and whether the damage eventually begins to change how America fights the war.
That is the part of this conflict that may matter most in the months ahead.
