US launches 'heavy' strikes on Iran after attempted attack on American troops
The latest attack comes during a week where hostilities continue, following the first publicly announced joint US-Saudi strikes on Iranian proxies in Iraq.
The US military confirmed it carried out a “heavy wave” of strikes against Iran in response to Iranian attempted ballistic missile strikes on American forces on Tuesday.
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US Central Command (Centcom) said it struck “dozens” of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in retaliation for Iran’s attack on US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest strikes have killed three people, including a two-year-old child, on Qeshm Island, Iranian state media reported. Other locations were also hit in the south and west of the country.
This comes during a week where hostilities continue to deepen, following the first publicly announced joint US-Saudi strikes on Iranian proxies in Iraq.
When military strikes were announced against Iran by the US and Israel in February, Donald Trump said the war would last just a few weeks – but five months on there appears to be no end in sight.
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Trump reportedly met Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, an unnamed US official told Axios, who said that Saudi Arabia wants to ease tensions.
The latest strikes come after several days of relative calm.
Both sides paused strikes as talks had reportedly restarted – Trump called them “very friendly negotiations”, but Iran denied they were taking place.
The US President promised to retaliate after an Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan on Tuesday.
"We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them. They know it's coming,” he said, adding “they asked us not to do it."
The latest strikes, which Centcom called a "powerful response to yesterday's attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East", began at 8 pm on Wednesday and went on for about an hour.
Centcom confirmed the US attack targeted "military command centres, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defence sites, and maritime capabilities.”
Both the islands of Qeshm and Abadan, vital parts of the oil industry, were among the areas hit, according to Iranian state media agency Irib.
"A US attack on a residential home in the Chah Tangu neighbourhood of Qeshm killed three members of a family: the father, the mother, and their 2-year-old child," Fars reported, citing the Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences.
Jordan’s military confirmed that air defence systems had successfully shot down five Iranian missiles targeting the country on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the IRGC reported that it had struck a US air base and a command centre in Jordan "in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army".
It added that naval forces had hit three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that "ignored warnings" and travelled through what it called an "unsafe and illegal route”.
Last Friday, President Trump paused an intense bombardment that went on for 13 consecutive nights, which Washington said had targeted Iranian weapons and military sites, killing multiple people.
On Tuesday, Centcom claimed that the joint US-Saudi strikes hit "multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours".
Iraqi paramilitary group, Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), run by Iran-supported Shia militias, claimed that more than 20 of its members were killed in US-Saudi strikes on its bases.
The presidency of Iraq condemned the bombing of the PMF bases, branding it "an unacceptable attack and a blatant violation of Iraq's sovereignty".
Trump told Fox News the strikes had been "co-ordinated with the Iraqi government".
Saudi Arabia, which identifies as the top Sunni Muslim authority in the region, and Iran, the biggest Shia Muslim country, have had ongoing tensions trying to achieve regional dominance for decades.