A new report from The Wall Street Journal has shed new light on the July attack that killed three American service members at a US-operated base in Jordan, revealing that Iran leveraged high-resolution satellite imagery provided by Chinese entities to plan and execute the strike, according to anonymous US intelligence officials.
The targeted site, Muwaffaq Salti Air Base located in northeastern Jordan, suffered extensive damage when Iranian ballistic missiles slammed into an on-base housing area and aircraft parking zones on July 17. Three US soldiers were killed and four more were wounded in the assault, marking the first fatal US combat losses after a brief April ceasefire between Israel and Iranian-aligned militant groups. The attack sent immediate shockwaves through Washington, amplifying longstanding US concerns about Iran’s expanding capacity to locate and strike American military assets across the Middle East.
US officials confirmed to the Journal that Tehran obtained detailed, high-resolution satellite imagery of the base ahead of the strike. Notably, the officials stopped short of naming the specific Chinese entities involved, nor did they accuse the Chinese central government of direct complicity in the attack. Still, the revelation represents what US officials call the most concrete evidence to date that Chinese support for Iran’s intelligence operations has resulted in deadly outcomes for American forces.
Within three days of the attack, Iranian state media published high-resolution images of the damaged base infrastructure – imagery that US officials say could not have been captured or acquired without access to advanced Chinese satellite capabilities. Publicly available lower-resolution satellite assessments confirm that at least 20 separate structures on the base sustained damage.
This development comes at a sensitive moment in US-China relations, with tensions escalating ahead of a planned September 24 meeting between former US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. For months, US intelligence and national security officials have publicly and privately warned about the risk of Chinese commercial satellite firms selling high-resolution imagery that could be weaponized by Iran to target US military personnel and assets.
In May of the same year, the Trump administration imposed sweeping economic sanctions on three Chinese firms – MizarVision, Earth Eye, and Chang Guang – over allegations that they collected, distributed, and published satellite imagery that Iran could use to target US forces. Beyond land-based bases, US officials also confirmed ongoing concerns that China may be assisting Iran in improving its capacity to track and target moving American naval assets in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. While recent Iranian attempts to strike US naval vessels have failed, US Central Command has noted that Iran’s technical capacity for such attacks is steadily improving.
Chinese authorities have forcefully rejected the allegations, calling for the US to present concrete evidence to back up its claims. Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told reporters that unspecified actors were engaging in “maliciously linking and smearing other countries” by exploiting the ongoing regional conflict for political gain. He emphasized that all bilateral cooperation between China and Iran adheres strictly to international law and does not target third parties.
US officials also acknowledged that Iran draws intelligence from a wide range of sources beyond Chinese imagery, including its own domestic satellite program, on-the-ground human intelligence networks, and additional imagery and intelligence support from Russia. Chinese satellite data is understood to be just one of multiple intelligence streams Iran utilized to plan the July strike.
In recent weeks, US intelligence officials have held closed-door briefings for congressional intelligence committees, outlining what they describe as growing coordinated intelligence support for Iran from both Russia and China. Publicly, however, the Trump administration has sought to downplay the severity of the issue. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, declined to directly confirm or deny whether Beijing had provided targeting intelligence to Iran, noting only that “nothing that China has done has in any way changed the trajectory of the conflict” in the Middle East.