The U.S. military said Tuesday it had completed a major strike against Iran in retaliation for an attempted ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces.
Centcom said it struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in response to Iran’s shelling of US military bases in Jordan and ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state media reported that the airstrike killed three people, including a 2-year-old child, on Qeshm Island, and also damaged other areas in southern and western Iran.
The latest hostilities come in a week when the conflict escalated with the first publicly announced joint US-Saudi attacks targeting Iranian proxies in Iraq.
When the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran in February, President Donald Trump said the war would last only a few weeks, but the war has continued for five months with no end in sight.
On Wednesday, news outlet Axios cited an unnamed U.S. official as saying that Trump met with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and expressed Saudi Arabia’s desire to ease tensions. The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.
The conflict between the United States and Iran has flared up again after several days of relative calm.
Both sides suspended the strike for several days, with talks seemingly resuming in the hope of some form of diplomatic solution. President Trump called these “very friendly negotiations,” but Tehran denied any discussions were taking place.
But after an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan on Tuesday, Trump told reporters at the White House: “We’re going to hit them very hard. They know it’s coming because now it’s our turn to hit them. They’ve asked us not to do that.”
The latest wave of attacks in the US began at 20:00 ET on Wednesday (01:00 BST on Thursday) and lasted about an hour, with Centcom calling it “a strong response to Iran’s attempted attack on US troops stationed in the Middle East.” All Iranian missiles were intercepted, Centcom said.
After the strike was completed, Centcom said the U.S. strike targeted “military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities.”
Iranian state media outlet Irib reported that the islands of Qeshm and Abadan, centers of the oil industry, were among the affected areas.
“The US attack on a residential house near Chah Tangu in Qeshm killed three members of a family, including a father, mother and their two-year-old child,” Fars reported, citing Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences.
Meanwhile, the Jordanian military said its air defense system successfully shot down five Iranian missiles targeting Jordanian territory on Thursday.
IRGC on Tuesday They said they targeted U.S. air bases and command centers in Jordan “in response to acts of aggression by America’s child-killing forces.”
The navy also said it attacked three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after ignoring warnings and sailing along an “unsafe and illegal route” through the Gulf’s vital waterway.
Last Friday, Trump halted an intensive bombing campaign that had lasted 13 consecutive days. The United States said it targeted Iranian weapons and military facilities. Dozens of people are reported to have died.
On Tuesday, Centcom said joint US-Saudi strikes “hit multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a robust response to more than 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone strikes over the past 72 hours.”
Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), controlled by Iran-backed Shiite militias, said at least 20 people were killed in U.S. and Saudi airstrikes on U.S. military bases.
Iraq’s president said he condemned the bombing of the PMF base as “an unacceptable attack and a blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty.”
But Trump told Fox News that the strike was “carried out in coordination with the Iraqi government.”
Saudi Arabia, which calls itself the largest Sunni Islamic power, and Iran, the largest Shiite Muslim country, have been fighting for regional hegemony for decades.
