Trump threatens retaliation after Iran launches ‘surprise attack’ on US troops in Jordan

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to renew strikes against Iran after it launched what U.S. officials said was a surprise ballistic missile attack against troops in Jordan.

Speaking to Fox News, the president said the U.S. would be hitting Iran hard in response, but did not clarify a timeline or targets.

“We are going to beat the f---ing sh-- out of them,” he told the news outlet.

Air defenses “intercepted and destroyed” five missiles from Iran early Wednesday, Jordanian state media reported, citing an armed forces spokesperson.

U.S. Central Command said that Iran had launched ballistic missiles in an “attempted surprise attack” on U.S. forces in the Middle East and that all the missiles were intercepted.

The attack came just after the U.S. ended a 13-day bombing campaign, creating an opening for diplomacy to end a war now in its sixth month. Instead, the conflict expanded Wednesday, with attacks and counterattacks involving Iran and its proxies in the region.

According to CENTCOM, Iran-backed militant groups in Iraq conducted more than 30 drone attacks against U.S. forces and energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia this week. The attacks against U.S. forces were unsuccessful, the command said.

In response, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. carried out joint precision strikes against “Iran-aligned terrorists,” CENTCOM said. The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq said 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded.

Over the weekend, U.S. officials signaled they would hold off on further attacks to allow for diplomacy, though President Donald Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that those talks appeared to be stalling.

If an agreement isn’t reached, the U.S. will launch a strike against Pickax Mountain, an Iranian nuclear enrichment site believed to contain nuclear material, Trump said.

“If we don’t make a deal, we’ll take it out very easily,” he said.

Iran’s latest strike on U.S. forces could mark a change in strategy, following months in which Tehran mostly described its attacks as retaliatory, analysts said.

The timing could be linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Tuesday, said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Tehran may be signaling that it is prepared to launch preemptive strikes if it believes an attack is imminent, Azizi wrote on X.

“The attack therefore appears to have been a warning to the United States not to join or initiate a new military campaign against Iran,” he said.

A separate strike on a Jordanian air base earlier this month killed three U.S. soldiers, marking the first American service member deaths since the early days of the war.

In total, 18 service members have been killed and at least 642 wounded in the war, according to the latest count from the Pentagon’s casualty database.

Most of those injured suffered traumatic brain injuries, and nearly all have returned to duty, according to CENTCOM.