Foreign News
US launches strikes on Iran following ‘attempted attacks in Strait’
American forces resumed strikes against Iran on Tuesday, US Central Command has said in a statement.
The Iranian Red Crescent said four people including a young child were killed, and more than 50 injured, when shrapnel from a US missile attack hit a home where a wedding celebration was taking place in Sirik in southern Iran.
Centcom said the strikes followed “recent attempted attacks” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and “American service members deployed to the region”.
The IRGC said the US would regret the strikes, and Iranian news agencies reported that retaliatory missile and drone attacks on US targets had begun.
Donald Trump, when the US strikes were announced on Tuesday afternoon, warned that Iran would be hit again at “a much harder and higher level” if it retaliated.
The attack follows the first known US strikes on Iran since late July earlier this week, when forces attacked two rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait. Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at air bases in Jordan and a drone at the UAE.
Centcom said US forces had begun striking IRGC targets at 12:00 ET (16:00 GMT).
As well as the Sirik attack, other reports said projectiles had hit the areas of Chabahar and Konarak and an airport in Jiroft, and that explosions were heard in Qeshm island and Bandar Abbas.
The IRGC was reported as saying it had launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at a US Marine base in Jordan’s Aqaba in retaliation for the Sirik attack.
The Jordanian Armed Forces said there were no deaths or injuries as a result of the attack from Iran, according to the country’s state-affiliated Al-Mamlaka network.
The network also said that the country’s national security centre had warned residents of the Aqaba and Mafraq governates of falling debris, adding that the warning had since ended.
Trump said Tuesday’s “large and powerful” strikes were a response to Iran’s targeting of a US military base in Jordan, adding the country had “failed” at adding sea mines to the Strait.
He also threatened that a much larger-scale attack was “waiting in the wings”.
