Confirmed – U.S. Forces at Saudi air base suffer Iranian attack

Space intelligence has confirmed that an Iranian strike destroyed a US Air Force aircraft at a base in Saudi Arabia

Multiple American service members were wounded and some aircraft were damaged in a March 27 Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told ‘Air & Space Forces Magazine’.

At least 10 service members were wounded, two seriously, according to initial reports.

An Iranian missile struck the base, injuring the service members. Multiple drones were also used in the attack.

Multiple refueling aircraft and an E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane are among the aircraft damaged, according to preliminary information. A photo showed significant damage to a USAF E-3.

Iran remains capable of launching missiles as this episode shows and continues to attack key U.S. bases and targets across the region even with diminishing assets.

Prince Sultan Air Base is an important U.S. military hub in the Middle East and hosts an array of aircraft supporting operations against Iran.

Over 300 service members have been wounded so far in Operation Epic Fury, according to U.S. officials. Thirteen service members have been killed, including a Soldier at Prince Sultan Air Base during a previous attack on the base in early March.

NYT: A wave of strikes across the Middle East in recent days shows that Iran has not lost the capacity to retaliate

An Iranian strike on an American military base in Saudi Arabia, injuring two dozen troops. Two drones targeting a port in Oman, and a strike on the Kuwait International Airport. Workers at an aluminum facility in Abu Dhabi wounded by a missile and drone attack.

President Trump has said that the United States has all but obliterated Iranian military abilities, portraying Iran as a defanged adversary. But a series of attacks against Israel and Gulf countries in the past several days is only the latest evidence that Iran retains enough missiles and drones to destabilize the region and inflict a punishing cost on its foes, while signaling that, contrary to Mr. Trump’s declarations, it is still very much in the fight, ‘The New York Times’ notes.

People entering an underground bomb shelter during an air raid warning in Tel Aviv
Photo: ‘The New York Times’

Millions of Israelis are still rushing into bomb shelters day and night to take cover from Iranian missile fire. The daily routine of sirens and booms sows fear and paralysis. Seven people were injured in central Israel on Thursday after missile barrages, according to the country’s emergency service.

Iran still has hundreds of ballistic missiles

Iran still most likely possesses thousands of Shahed drones and could still have hundreds of ballistic missiles despite American and Israeli strikes over the past four weeks, one U.S. official said. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military capabilities, cautioned that it was impossible to know for sure, as U.S. intelligence on Iranian ability is limited.

Kelly A. Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a foreign affairs research institute in Washington, says the number of strikes may not matter as much as how effectively Iran is using its arsenal.

Ms. Grieco has analyzed open-source data on Iran’s salvos and, while cautioning that the numbers are inexact, found that Iran’s hit rate has increased as the war has progressed, more than doubling since March 10.

“Adversaries adapt,” Ms. Grieco said. “There are signs here that we don’t have a defeated adversary and that we may have one that’s adapting and learning and doing enough damage to implement its strategy.”

The wave of Iranian strikes showed no signs of letting up

Iran could have been firing fewer missiles and drones because it was repositioning them, she said, not because they were destroyed. The Iranians may have been slowing their pace of attack as they integrated new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information into their targeting decisions.

The wave of Iranian strikes showed no signs of letting up this weekend, with missiles and drones causing damage across the Gulf region, disabling a radar at the Kuwait airport and injuring a worker and damaging a crane at the Omani port. And the willingness of the Houthis to strike at Israel suggests more firepower will be brought to bear against Iran’s enemies.

While Israel’s military says its air defenses have managed to intercept the vast majority of the ballistic missiles, Iran struck a symbolic blow last weekend when one crashed into the southern desert city of Dimona, barely 10 miles from Israel’s nuclear research facility and reactor, one of its most protected sites, injuring dozens.

An Israeli soldier horrified by Iranian attacks
Photo: AP

Iran did not sit idle after the June 2025 war, but used the time to prepare for the next conflict

Iran has also found an apparent chink in Israel’s armor by firing ballistic missiles with cluster-munition warheads at population centers that break open above ground, then disperse dozens of small bomblets across several miles.

Iran’s capacity for retaliation during this war represents a quick recovery from the 12-day assault that Israel launched against it last June. After that round, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had achieved “a historic victory” that would “stand for generations.” Iran’s ballistic missile production capability had been “destroyed,” the prime minister said.

If Israel had underestimated anything, analysts said, it was the speed with which Iran had begun to rebuild that capacity.

Iran did not sit idle after the June war, but used the time to prepare for the next conflict.

Farzan Sabet, an analyst of Iran and weapons systems at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, agreed with Ms. Grieco’s analysis that while Iran was launching fewer missiles, they had higher penetration rates than at the beginning of the war. Once that sense of insecurity and instability has been created, he said, “you don’t need to have, thousands or even hundreds of launches a day. You might be able to do that with dozens of successful penetrations.”

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