The Pentagon on Wednesday evening announced it carried out a “heavy wave” of strikes against Iran after President Donald Trump committed to delivering the Middle Eastern country “a beating” for launching surprise attacks on U.S. troops in Jordan.
U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8 p.m. EDT on Wednesday and concluded the strikes at 10 p.m., hitting “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.”
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Three explosions were heard on Iran’s Qeshm island, according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency. The United States has previously targeted the island, which lies near the Strait of Hormuz and serves as a strategic storage location for Iranian attack craft, drones, sea mines, and other weapons Tehran is using to disrupt the flow of oil through one of the world’s most valuable water passageways.
“The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted to X.
The development comes after the Pentagon said Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles in “an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces” in Jordan on Tuesday. The attacks disrupted a temporary lull in the war, as the U.S. military had not carried out an attack on Iran since Thursday.
Jordan’s armed forces said the country’s air defenses intercepted and destroyed five missiles launched from Iran after Iran said it fired ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a key U.S. military hub for the region.
In response to the Jordan attack, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia launched joint airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, and Trump warned Wednesday morning that more retaliatory strikes were coming.
IRAN FIRES MISSILES AT US FORCES IN JORDAN, ENDING BRIEF LULL IN ATTACKS
“We’re going to beat the f***ing s*** out of them,” he told Fox News. “We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”
The Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi paramilitary group backed by Iran, said at least 20 of its fighters were killed in the U.S.-Saudi strikes. PMF said Wednesday that its headquarters in Baghdad, Wasit, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Karbala, and Diyala were hit.
