The United States military launched a heavy wave of retaliatory strikes against Iran late Wednesday, hitting dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets after Tehran attempted a fresh missile attack on American forces in the region, U.S. Central Command said.
CENTCOM said its forces began firing at around 8 p.m. ET and the operation lasted roughly two hours, striking military command centers, missile and drone production and storage facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and Iranian maritime capabilities. “CENTCOM assets struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities,” the command said in a statement. U.S. officials said all Iranian missiles fired at American positions were intercepted and there were no reported American casualties from that barrage.
The strikes were ordered in response to an Iranian attempt to attack a U.S. base in Jordan a day earlier. Jordan’s armed forces said air defenses intercepted five missiles launched from Iran toward the country, in what Washington called an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and a CENTCOM facility in Jordan, though preliminary assessments found no casualties from that strike.
President Trump, speaking to reporters as the operation got underway, said the United States would hit back hard. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them,” he said, according to multiple pool reports. The strikes came after Trump had paused U.S. military action days earlier to allow room for renewed negotiations with Tehran, an opening that collapsed once Iran launched its latest missile attempt.
The escalation has also spread to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil shipping chokepoints. Iranian forces struck commercial tankers in the strait, including vessels identified as the Mombasa and the Al Bahiyah, with cruise missiles fired into Omani territorial waters. At least one crew member, an Indian national, was killed and eight others were wounded, four of them seriously, after fires broke out aboard the ships. Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had “struck and stopped” three oil tankers passing through the waterway.
The exchange marks one of the most serious escalations since fighting between the U.S., Israel and Iran first erupted last year, and analysts warn that continued attacks on shipping lanes in the Gulf could send global oil prices sharply higher given that roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne crude passes through Hormuz.
Trump had earlier predicted the conflict would be brief, but the fighting has instead dragged on for months, with periodic pauses for diplomacy repeatedly breaking down. Wednesday’s strikes came just days after one such pause, underscoring how fragile any ceasefire effort has been.
Regional governments, including Jordan and Oman, have been caught in the crossfire even though neither is a direct combatant, raising concerns among U.S. allies in the Gulf about the risk of a wider regional war. The Pentagon has not said whether it expects further retaliation from Tehran, but officials have indicated that additional U.S. assets remain positioned in the region.
Sources: U.S. Central Command, Al Jazeera, The Jerusalem Post