US airstrikes target Iran's Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island
American military forces launched their first strikes on the Iranian mainland in more than a month just days after the top US commander for the region said Iranian mines have been cleared from Hormuz shipping lanes.
WASHINGTON — US military aircraft bombed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sites in southern Iran on Tuesday in response to renewed projectile attacks on commercial ships, US officials said.
Explosions were reported in the southern Iranian port area of Bandar Abbas as well as in Chabahar and the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the latest round of US strikes came in response to Iran forces allegedly attempting to place additional mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
Describing the strikes as a “large and powerful,” Trump wrote on Truth Social that the latest round of retaliation also came in response to “the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down,” at a US base in Jordan over the weekend.
“If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings,” Trump posted.
The US military carried out its latest airstrikes just one day after two tankers laden with Saudi oil were hit minutes apart by projectiles off the coast of Oman as they were attempting to traverse the strait.
On Monday, US warplanes bombed sites on Iran's Larak Island near the port of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz. US Navy Capt. Timothy Hawkins told Al-Monitor on Monday that the strikes were preemptive to stop IRGC forces that were "preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz."
The Pentagon's top commander for the Middle East, Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, announced last week in a pre-recorded video address that the main internationally utilized shipping corridors via Hormuz had been cleared of explosive naval mines.
American military forces in the region "are monitoring the area closely and remain prepared to protect the free flow of commerce" via the strait, Hawkins said on Monday.
This week's tit-for-tat attacks broke a monthlong period of relative calm in direct fighting between the two warring sides, as the Trump administration has shifted the campaign’s emphasis away from military escalation to economic pressure via secondary sanctions.
Tuesday’s strikes by the US appeared to demonstrate that the Trump White House is not averse to resuming limited military counterattacks against Iran to periodically degrade the IRGC’s military assets around Hormuz if the paramilitary faction continues to launch missiles in the region.
This story has been updated since its initial publication
