US and Iran Trade Fresh Strikes as Hormuz Crisis Deepens
US strikes on Iran draw missile and drone retaliation, including attacks on bases in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait, as the Strait of Hormuz conflict escalates.
The United States launched a new wave of airstrikes against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday, prompting immediate retaliation from Tehran and marking the most serious escalation in weeks in a conflict that has disrupted global energy markets.
The strikes targeted IRGC air defense systems, radar installations, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities, and communication sites, according to the US military's Central Command. The action was described as a response to recent Iranian attempts to place sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz and missile attacks on American service members.
Iranian media reported explosions in several locations, including near the city of Ahvaz, at the civilian Jiroft airport, and in the port cities of Chabahar and Bandar Abbas. The Iranian Red Crescent reported that five people were killed and dozens wounded when a strike hit a wedding near Sirik, a coastal area on the Strait of Hormuz. There was no immediate US comment on the civilian casualty reports.
In retaliation, the IRGC said it launched a heavy ballistic missile attack on a US Marine Corps base in Jordan, claiming to have killed a large number of American forces. Two US officials, however, said there were no casualties so far from the attack, based on initial information. Jordan's armed forces said its air defenses intercepted 10 of 13 incoming ballistic missiles, with the remaining three landing in remote areas.
Iranian media also reported a large-scale drone attack on a US base in Bahrain, and the Kuwaiti army said its air defenses were responding to a hostile drone attack.
President Donald Trump warned that any further Iranian retaliation would be met with overwhelming force. "If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level," he said in a social media post, adding that an eventual larger attack would leave "very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Tehran remained defiant. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted as saying that if the enemy wants to stop Iranian oil exports, "no one will be able to export oil" from the Gulf. The IRGC said the US attacks would "tighten the lock" on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that carried one in five barrels of the world's oil before the conflict.
Global oil prices rose more than $4 a barrel on Tuesday, settling at a five-week high. The escalation follows a weekend exchange of fire and attacks on two tankers leaving the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed to shipping.
The latest strikes come after a month of relative calm in which both sides mostly held their fire while exchanging hostile statements. The conflict, now six months old, had shifted into an economic standoff before the weekend attacks, in which US forces struck Iran's Larak Island and Iran launched missiles at two US air bases in Jordan.