U.S. Service Members Die in Iran Attack on Jordan Base

U.S. service members died after Iran attacked a base in Jordan, according to Fortune reported. The deaths followed a week of intensified fighting that ended a prior ceasefire. The U.S. military reinstated a naval blockade of Iran and bombed coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz for several consecutive days.

Airstrikes also targeted Iranian railways that could ferry weapons. Iran responded with attacks on commercial ships, U.S. military assets across the Persian Gulf, energy infrastructure, and water desalination plants.

Fighting has not reached the scale of earlier phases of the war. Oil prices jumped as the clashes intensified in recent days. Consuming countries have drawn down stockpiles to the lowest level in decades.

The U.S. had established an alternate route through the strait to bypass an Iranian corridor, but renewed fighting shut it down. -backed route and no shadow fleet movements were recorded, while Iran’s route recorded seven transits.

Early last month, before a now-collapsed memorandum of understanding, President Trump told aides he would consider ending the ceasefire if Iran killed American troops, the Wall Street Journal reported. On Saturday Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if U.S. ” The U.S.

Blames Iran for violating the ceasefire by refusing to reopen the strait and attacking ships outside Tehran’s approved corridor. Iran’s economy is reeling and its conventional forces were decimated, yet it retains enough power to deter commercial shipping.

Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the dispute centers on control of the Strait of Hormuz and that collapse of the minimal understanding risks a forever war.