War Glance
As munitions streaked through the night sky, a plaintive cry like a whale song echoed in the darkness. U.S. troops grabbed their gear and headed for shelter as the warning sirens rang out, a leaked video shows.
The military personnel, clad in a mix of combat fatigues and gym attire, piled into a bunker, huddling in the darkness. “Guys, off the walls if we can,” a woman, likely a medic, advised, warning about the danger of traumatic brain injuries.
The footage, reportedly from Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, where three U.S. troops were killed during Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks on July 17 and 18, offers a glimpse of the dangers faced by U.S. forces across the Middle East.
The attacks are continued demonstrations of Iran’s ability to target U.S. bases across the Middle East and kill U.S. troops, despite months of claims by President Donald Trump and self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iran’s military was annihilated. As this fiction has collapsed, U.S. Central Command has refused to discuss the number and scale of the strikes. “I have nothing for you on that,” Maj. Emma Thompson, the command’s media operations chief, told The Intercept.
The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.
Alexandra Bravo, the prosecutor assigned to investigate U.S. strikes on three Ecuadorian boats and the 36 survivors’ subsequent accounts of torture and kidnapping, was shot dead in the coastal city of Manta last month. According to police, on June 14 a hitman aboard a black motorcycle opened fire on Bravo as she and her sister were leaving a café at about 11 a.m. Bravo’s sister, who jumped to protect her, was also killed in the attack.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) struck a tanker in the Black Sea, a Russian pontoon crossing and a concentration of Russian personnel as part of broader efforts to weaken Mosconotw’s military and economic capabilities.
The confirmed U.S. military death toll in the war with Iran rose to 17 after two American soldiers were killed in Jordan, the Pentagon announced July 19.
