U.S. officials have dismissed concerns over its stockpiles of key missiles, including of vital interceptors that would be used to protect U.S. military bases around the Middle East.
“The U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social early Thursday.
The president said his statement came in response to “treasonous” accounts emerging in recent days, after several outlets reported the U.S. had drained its arsenal of important weapons, including advanced and expensive air defense missiles capable of intercepting Iranian ballistic missile attacks.
Tehran and Iranian-backed proxy groups attacked at least eight countries in the Middle East in the weeks after a mid-June ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran disintegrated.
Iran has targeted multiple U.S. military bases with ballistic missiles, particularly facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.
Between June 18—the day after the U.S. and Iran agreed to stop strikes—and July 28, Iran or Iranian-backed groups carried out at least 57 attacks on Kuwait, 38 attacks on Bahrain and 27 attacks on Jordan, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit that tracks violent conflicts around the world. This data sometimes characterizes an attack in which Iran fired multiple drones or missiles at the same time as one strike.
In July, three U.S. service members were killed in an Iranian missile and drone barrage on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. A ballistic missile evaded air defenses, a senior U.S. official told The New York Times.
Two U.S.-made systems, the Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), are known to be able to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles.
Ballistic missiles are often difficult for air defense systems to intercept because they travel much faster than cruise missiles or drones. They follow less predictable trajectories and fly much higher. They also plunge almost vertically toward their targets, so air defenses have less time to react.
The U.S. had roughly 452 THAAD interceptors before the war, which began on February 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran. By the end of July, there were as few as 234 left, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said last month.
Before the start of the conflict, the U.S. had about 2,330 interceptors for its Patriot air defense systems, according to the CSIS estimates. By July 27, that had dipped as low as 759.
THAAD and Patriot systems, as well as the missiles they fire, are in high demand and scarce supply across the world, with Ukraine lamenting that Patriot interceptors have been diverted away from the systems deployed around its cities to the Middle East since the beginning of the Iran war.
During a massive Russian ballistic missile strike on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the early hours of Wednesday, not a single ballistic missile was intercepted. Ukraine blamed a shortage of interceptors for the casualties and destruction.
Without interceptor missiles, the U.S. similarly wouldn’t be able to protect its Middle Eastern bases. Iranian ballistic missiles are thought to be capable of hitting as far away as NATO member Greece, as well as parts of Ukraine and Russia—putting all U.S. facilities in the region at risk.
Where Are US Bases in the Middle East?
The U.S. has tens of thousands of personnel deployed in the Middle East, including at bases of different sizes in U.S.-aligned countries.
Some are permanent or major installations, while others are smaller sites or jointly operated facilities. Experts typically maintain that the U.S. has 19 bases across the Middle East, with eight considered permanent facilities.
Bahrain serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, overseeing naval operations across the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia.
The island nation also hosts the U.S. Coast Guard’s largest overseas unit and the headquarters of the Fifth Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Manama.
Additionally, Bahrain’s Khalifa bin Salman Port accommodates American aircraft carriers essential for coordinating regional air operations.
Kuwait has a large U.S. Army base at Camp Arifjan, as well as the Ali Al Salem Air Base close to the border with Iraq. The U.S. can access another air base under agreements with the Kuwaiti government and has a training base at Camp Buehring.
The U.S. has air defenses deployed at Camp Patriot in Kuwait and coordinates logistics from the Port of Shuaiba.
Six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers were killed in an Iranian strike on Port Shuaiba on March 1. More than 30 others were wounded.
Roughly 13,000 U.S. soldiers are normally stationed in Kuwait.
Qatar, which has positioned itself as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran, came under Iranian attack seven times between mid-June and the end of July.
The Gulf state is an attractive military target for Iran as it is home to Al Udeid, the U.S.’s largest base in the Middle East.
Satellite images from the initial days of the war showed damage at Umm Dahal, where Qatar had based a U.S.-made early warning radar system.
In Jordan, the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base—also known as the Al-Azraq Air Base—is roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the capital, Amman, and has been repeatedly targeted by Iran, including in recent weeks.
Iran has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on Iraq, including on a special forces command center in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Officials in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region, where authorities are backed by a U.S.-led coalition, called on Iran to stop attacking sites in Iraq, including around the regional capital, Erbil.
A U.S. soldier, identified as Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton, was killed “during a controlled detonation” of a downed drone near Erbil.
The United Arab Emirates shares the Al Dhafra Air Base, south of Abu Dhabi, with the U.S., and the U.S. Navy frequently uses the Jebel Ali Port in Dubai.
The Prince Sultan Air Base, a crucial hub south of Saudi Arabia‘s capital, Riyadh, has also come under repeated Iranian attack.
Sergeant Benjamin N. Pennington, the seventh U.S. service member killed in the conflict, died of his wounds after being injured in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Shakeema Edwards.
