US launches ‘heavy’ strikes on Iran after attempted attack on American troops

The latest wave of US strikes started at 20:00 ET on Wednesday (01:00 BST on Thursday) and lasted about an hour, with Centcom calling them a “powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East”. All of Iran’s missiles were intercepted, Centcom said.

The attack by the US targeted “military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities,” Centcom wrote once the strikes were complete.

Iranian state media agency Irib reported that the islands of Qeshm and Abadan, both central to the oil industry, were among the areas hit.

“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.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s armed forces said that air defence systems had successfully shot down five Iranian missiles targeting the Kingdom’s territory on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the IRGC said it had targeted a US air base and a command centre in Jordan “in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army”.

It also said naval forces had struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after they “ignored warnings” and sailed along what it described as an “unsafe and illegal route” through the vital Gulf waterway.

Last Friday, Trump suspended an intensive bombing campaign that had lasted for 13 consecutive nights. The US said it had targeted Iranian weapons and military sites. Scores of people were reported to have died.

On Tuesday, Centcom said 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”.

Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, said at least 20 of its members had been killed in US-Saudi strikes on its bases.

The Iraqi presidency said it denounced the bombing of the PMF bases, calling it “an unacceptable attack and a blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty”.

But Trump told Fox News the strikes had been “co-ordinated with the Iraqi government”.

Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the leading Sunni Muslim power, and Iran, the largest Shia Muslim country, have been locked in a struggle for regional dominance for decades.