The IRGC said it hit American jets in Jordan hours before CBS confirmed it anonymously
An A-10 lost a wing and roughly eight F-15s took light damage at Muwaffaq Salti air base. The attacker’s claim ran ahead of the target’s acknowledgement — and the Western record filled the gap with unnamed sources.
Iranian missile strikes overnight from Tuesday 8 into Wednesday 9 September, local time, hit Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, damaging multiple US military aircraft. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that one A-10 Thunderbolt II was struck and lost a wing, while roughly eight F-15s sustained light damage and were returned to service. The sequence matters more than the tally. Per the same outlet, the IRGC claimed within hours of the attack that it had damaged American aircraft. CBS then reported the damage first among US outlets, on anonymous sourcing — a report carried into Haaretz’s live file on 10 September. The claim by the party with the strongest incentive to inflate it arrived first; the independent account that followed rested on officials who would not put their names to it.
Assessment: This is the recurring shape of the current war’s reporting, and it is not a scandal — it is a structural problem. When a defence ministry declines to confirm damage, the only competing account on the record belongs to the side that caused it, and the correction, when it comes, arrives anonymously. Readers should note that the anonymous version here was more specific and more modest than the claim: a wing, eight jets, most back in service. Where a belligerent’s claim and an unnamed official’s account converge on roughly the same facts, that convergence is itself the strongest evidence available — and it is also the point at which nobody can be held to anything.