1 of 2 | An Iranian woman on Wednesday walks next to a huge anti-U.S. billboard featuring U.S. President Donald Trump in a coffin, accompanied by a sentence in Persian that reads, “We kill Trump.” It is displayed at the Enghelab Square in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Abedin Taherkennareh/EPA
The United States attacked Iran on Wednesday, and Iran struck U.S. assets across the region into Thursday morning, marking the fifth straight day of strikes between the two nations as they fight over the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command launched two waves of attacks seeking to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten vessels transiting the vital chokepoint between Iran and Oman.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said early Thursday that it was conducting missile and drone strikes targeting U.S. assets at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
“Once again, we remind the honorable people of Kuwait that the United States is committing these crimes against Muslim Iran from your soil,” the elite military unit responsible for protecting Iran’s Islamic regime said in a statement.
The IRGC-aligned Fars News Agency reported early Thursday that U.S. bases and facilities in Bahrain, as well as in Kuwait, were being struck. It separately said it was attacking U.S. assets at the Al-Azraq Base in Jordan.
The extent of potential damage could not be independently verified. However, the Kuwait Army said its air defenses were confronting drone attacks, and the Jordanian Armed Forces said they downed eight Iranian missiles early Thursday. Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior urged residents to find shelter as sirens blared, suggesting an incoming attack.
CENTCOM said in a statement that its second wave ended at 9 p.m. EDT, hitting command centers, air defense sites, coastal surveillance facilities and missile ad drone capabilities.
In announcing the strikes hours earlier, CENTCOM had said they were “targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“The U.S. military is holding Iran accountable at the commander in chief’s direction,” the post said.
The U.S. attacks followed earlier strikes on Greater Tunb Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a key site for Iran’s coastal defenses and missile storage, during a 90-minute wave. The U.S. military also said it fired on the Curacao-flagged Belma vessel transiting international waters toward Iran.
CENTCOM accused it of violating a military blockade of Iran’s coast that Trump reimposed Tuesday afternoon to deny Iran maritime trade.
The IRGC said Ahvaz, a southwestern Iranian city, had come under U.S. attack, with missiles reportedly hitting near Baghaei Hospital, which treats children with cancer, requiring all but the most ill patients to be transferred to another medical facility.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Bagher Ghalibaf told state media that Iran had “no reason” to abide by any deal with the United States if it did not benefit from it, but he left the door open for possible diplomacy, stating: “We must utilize diplomacy and negotiation to achieve and stabilize our national interests.”
While the war began in late February with President Donald Trump seeking to dismantle Iran’s nuclear and conventional weapons programs while encouraging regime change, the current chapter of the war is over the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump is fighting to restore freedom of navigation through the waterway, down which about one-fifth of global energy supplies flow. Tehran is fighting to preserve its ability to restrict passage through the chokepoint as leverage and has previously suggested it could charge vessels that transit it.
The U.S. attacks came as Trump told reporters that Iran’s leaders “better behave” on Wednesday, one day after he threatened that the United States would strike bridges and power plants if Iran did not return to the negotiating table.
“They want to settle so badly,” Trump said later Wednesday at a defense summit in Pennsylvania. “They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them or we just finish it off.”
