U.S. fires 60 to 70 Patriot interceptors in Iranian missile attack on Jordan

Pentagon watchdog cites ‘strategic inventory shortfalls’ for munitions

The U.S. military fired 60 to 70 Patriot interceptors and more than a dozen THAAD antimissile interceptors last week when Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, U.S. and regional officials familiar with the matter said. The strike consisted of about 20 ballistic missiles, some of which carried warheads that separate into more numerous projectiles as they close in on their target, the officials said.

Despite the U.S. response, Iran managed to hit jet fighters and other aircraft at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, one of the officials said. No U.S. troops were killed in the attack.

The interceptor expenditure is about what the U.S. has used in a full week at other points in the war, another of the officials said. The exchanges showed how air-defense math can favor the attacker and how Iran has adapted its attacks to force the U.S. to burn precious munitions.

Throughout the war, Iran’s attacks have grown increasingly complex, with Iran using different missile varieties, trajectories, maneuvers and warheads to try to overwhelm U.S. defenses, officials say. In July, Iran killed three U.S. servicemembers in one of those missile attacks on Jordan. U.S. officials say Iran acquired high-resolution satellite images of the base from Chinese entities before the attack, U.S. officials familiar with the details of the incident said.

“These types of new tactics that we’re seeing show that the Iranians continue to adapt, continue to learn, continue to experiment, see what works, what doesn’t work,” said Fabian Hinz, an expert on Iran’s missile force with Conflict Armament Research.

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, declined to comment. Jordanian officials also declined to comment. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell rejected suggestions that U.S. munitions supplies were strained. “Reports suggesting that the United States’ munitions are depleted are completely false,” Parnell said. “The U.S. military remains the strongest and most capable fighting force in the world.” President Trump said Monday on social media that the U.S. has large numbers of interceptors in stock and is ramping up production.

Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the Patriot interceptors, produced a record 620 of them in 2025 and has set a goal of reaching roughly 2,000 a year.

A report this week by the Defense Department’s inspector general reached a more cautious assessment. The war “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply,” the report said.

The U.S. and Iran are locked in what the Journal characterized as a race between Iran’s ballistic missile capacity and American stockpiles of interceptors to knock them down.

The attacks show how Iran continues to be able to use its missile arsenal to put pressure on the U.S. military and allied countries in the region, officials said. Arab and U.S. officials said Gulf allies, who are concerned about their own declining stockpiles after repelling thousands of missile and drone attacks from Iran during more than six months of war, find any prospect of further escalation concerning.

Iran has managed to dig out missiles trapped in underground facilities by U.S. attacks early in the war and has recently resumed production of new missiles from stockpiled parts. The U.S. and its allies face production bottlenecks that Arab and U.S. officials said have put pressure on supplies of interceptors across the region.

U.S. inventories in Europe of PAC-3 Patriot air defense interceptors and ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles are deemed by some U.S. officials to be beyond critical, and rebuilding the stockpiles could take years, the Journal has reported. Military planners worry the U.S. has rushed so many munitions to the Middle East that America’s ability to defend against potential threats from China and Russia has been diminished, the Journal has reported.

Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” this week that he isn’t concerned at all about shortages of interceptors and that the military is ready for any contingency.

The supply strains have set off a scramble for interceptors among Gulf and other Middle East nations in Iran’s crosshairs and have weakened Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian airstrikes. Gulf states have lobbied the U.S. for more interceptors since early in the war and have scoured the world for other sources with mixed results. At one point, Israel sent one of its closely guarded Iron Dome systems to the United Arab Emirates along with troops to operate it.

By mid-July, the U.S. had expended about 1,700 Patriot air defense interceptors and more than 200 THAAD antimissile interceptors in the war, officials have said. U.S. Navy ships had fired another 150 Standard Missile interceptors to take out Iranian missiles and drones.

The Iranian attacks on Jordan grew out of an escalating exchange of fire as Tehran tries to break U.S. economic pressure, according to officials. After Iran fired missiles that came close to U.S. warships in the region, the U.S. military responded by destroying five Iranian oil tankers. Iran then attacked U.S. troops in Jordan in response, taking aim at a target it has fired at repeatedly over the summer.

“This has been the Iranian objective all along, to make the kind of the U.S. presence in the region unsustainable and costly,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. “So now it seems that Jordan is also not as safe as it used to be.”

In late July, a debate over munitions stockpiles, alongside diplomatic efforts, contributed to President Trump’s decision to forgo an intensive series of strikes on Iran that could have lasted two weeks, the Journal has reported.