Iran Claims It Destroyed Three F-35s; U.S. Says, "False Claim, No Aircraft Were Damaged"

[Financial News] As the United States resumed airstrikes on Iran after about six days, Iran also launched retaliatory attacks. Iran claimed it fired missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan and destroyed three F-35 fighter jets, but the United States dismissed the claim as baseless.
According to Iran's state-run IRIB, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on the 30th local time that it had fired missiles at U.S. bases in Jordan and Kuwait that day. The IRGC claimed, "This morning, we attacked the U.S. Al Azraq Air Base in Jordan with several ballistic missiles." It added, "The attack completely destroyed three F-35 fighter jets and severely damaged three other aircraft." The IRGC also said several U.S. officers and maintenance personnel were killed in the process.
The IRGC also announced that it had attacked the U.S. Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait on the same day. It said, "We destroyed two drone hangars and one military aviation fuel storage facility," warning that it would "continue attacks on U.S. military facilities until the United States is completely expelled from the region."
According to AFP, the Jordanian military said it shot down five Iranian missiles fired toward its territory with air defenses and that there were no casualties. On the same day, a spokesperson for Kuwait's Defense Ministry posted on X that "Iran's attack targeted a Chinese company building in northern Kuwait, killing one worker and causing severe damage to the building."
The United States, which had halted airstrikes on Iran and resumed talks since the 24th, turned to military action after Iran struck a U.S. base in Jordan on the 28th, coinciding with a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The United States said on the 28th that it had bombed pro-Iranian militias in Iraq together with Saudi Arabia, and on the 29th it announced that it had resumed airstrikes on Iran after six days.
CENTCOM, the U.S. military command responsible for operations against Iran, immediately rejected Iran's claim that it had destroyed F-35s. In a post on X on the 30th, CENTCOM said Iran was making a "false claim" and stressed that "no U.S. aircraft were destroyed or damaged during Iran's recent attack attempts." It also said that "all missiles and drones were either intercepted or failed to reach their targets."
CENTCOM also said in the post that "the IRGC claims that free and open shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz are dangerous for commercial vessels," calling that too a false claim. It emphasized that "the immediate danger to merchant ships and civilian crews comes from the IRGC's threatening rhetoric and attempted attacks."
CENTCOM also said Iranian state media were reporting that the civilian tanker M/T Nora had broken through the U.S. blockade line in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that "the vessel did not break through the U.S.'s ironclad blockade line." The United States has been stopping Iran-linked vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz as it has resumed hostilities with Iran this month.
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