In brief
- The US and Iran have traded retaliatory strikes near the Strait of Hormuz.
- Strikes resumed on Monday after the US attacked Kharg Island in the Strait.
Iran and its Arab neighbours were plunged back into war on Wednesday by the biggest exchange of fire between Tehran and Washington since July, with United States forces striking Iran's southern coast and Iran firing at American bases across the region.
The US threatened more devastating strikes and Iran has accused Washington of hitting a wedding party, killing five people and wounding dozens.
The US military's Central Command said it struck Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air defences, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites on Tuesday.
Iranian media reported hits on multiple targets near the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway where Tehran has threatened tankers attempting to pass without its permission.
Iran responded by striking what it said were US assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq, and said its aim was now to drive US forces out of the vast network of military bases they have maintained for decades across the Middle East.
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The latest escalation comes after US President Donald Trump had warned earlier of "much harder and higher" attacks if Iran retaliated to the US strikes, which Iranian state media said had killed 11 people in the country's south and southwest.
"American evil in the region will be met with heavier, more widespread, and devastating responses, and any country that cooperates with the aggressive American army must accept its dangerous consequences," Iran's military command said.
Jordan's military said it dealt with 13 missiles, 10 of which were intercepted and three which fell in remote areas. The IRGC said it killed a large number of US forces in Jordan, but US officials told Reuters there had not been any casualties, according to initial assessments.
In Kuwait, Iran said it had carried out a missile and drone attack on the vast U.S. Ali Al Salem Air Base and targeted the accommodation of a US commander. Kuwait’s fire service said crews put out a blaze at a residential complex early on Wednesday that was struck by an Iranian drone causing damage but no casualties.
Qatar, home of the largest US airbase in the Gulf, said it "holds the Islamic Republic of Iran fully legally responsible for these attacks and their repercussions and consequences." Bahrain, which houses the regional headquarters of the US Navy, said Iranian drones were intercepted and destroyed.
The IRGC said its ground forces carried out combined missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases in Erbil in northern Iraq, claiming to have killed several US personnel there. Neither Iraq nor the US confirmed the attack.
Iran also said two tankers had been struck by mines while being steered across the Strait of Hormuz by US operatives through a channel that Tehran says it has closed.
Tankers attacked
After six months of war, the foes remain at an impasse, with Iran keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and the United States persisting with a counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
The US said its forces attacked Iranian rocket launchers on the island of Larak on Sunday to prevent Iran from planting mines in the strait's key shipping lanes.
The Middle East war began in late February with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran that killed its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of world oil supplies flowed before the war, previously led to the collapse of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
Greek maritime risk management firm Marisks said Wednesday that two crude tankers were hit by "unknown projectiles" late the previous day.
One of the incidents had been publicised earlier by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency, which added that no casualties or environmental effects had been reported.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian meanwhile vowed to match any US move to return to a deal aimed at ending the war.
He also warned that a return by the United States to "a policy of pressure and threats could derail the path of diplomacy."
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