Tehran launches retaliatory strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan after US explosions reported across Iran.
United States Central Command (CENTCOM) says it has completed its 11th consecutive night of air strikes against Iran to further degrade the country’s “ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz”.
In a statement late on Tuesday, CENTCOM said US forces targeted “Iranian military operations centres, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure”.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas, reporting from Iran on Wednesday, said air defence systems in the eastern part of Tehran were “activated”, but officials said there were “no attacks on the Iranian capital as of now”.
Earlier, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi reported that “massive explosions” were heard in areas surrounding the Iranian capital.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported explosions were heard in parts of Bushehr, in southern Iran. Several explosions were also heard around Sirik in southern Iran, according to the Fars news agency.
Areas near the cities of Behbahan and Omidiyeh in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province had been targeted in US missile attacks, the region’s deputy governor told Fars news agency.
Fars reported that US forces attacked a military site on the outskirts of Tabriz in northwestern Iran. Quoting local crisis management officials, the news agency said the strike occurred at about 2:40am local time on Wednesday (23:10 GMT on Tuesday) and hit a military zone near the city. It said there have been no attacks inside the city.
Attacks on Tabriz and Tehran mark a departure from the general trend of strikes in the latest round, which have largely focused on southern Iran and the area around the Strait of Hormuz.
In retaliation, Iran’s military said on Wednesday that it hit US-linked sites in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.
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“In response to the repeated aggression of the evil enemy against parts of our country, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s army … targeted the ‘ammunition depots’ and ‘logistics equipment of the ground forces command centre’ of the criminal US army in the Doha garrison in western Kuwait with a large number of its destructive drones,” the army said in a statement.
It also said it targeted the US military in Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti airbase and Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa airbase.
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“The army targeted the ‘housing and welfare buildings’ and ‘equipment warehouses’ of the terrorist US army at the Azraq base in Jordan with drones in the morning,” a statement, cited by the Mehr news agency, said.
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“[Drones] also targeted the ‘large equipment warehouses and sheds’ and the ‘heavy aircraft maintenance and repair sheds’ of the child-killing and criminal US army at the Sheikh Isa airbase in Bahrain.”
Missile alert sirens sounded on Wednesday in Jordan’s port city of Aqaba, a day after the kingdom said it had intercepted five drones coming from Iran. Soon after, the Jordanian military said it intercepted four Iranian missiles, while two other missiles fell in remote, uninhabited areas, according to the Petra news agency.
Hostile aircraft sirens also sounded in Bahrain on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Kuwaiti army said its air defences has intercepted an Iranian drone attack.
Iran has repeatedly attacked Gulf and regional countries since the resumption of US attacks this month.
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Separately, the US military confirmed that a third service member is believed to be dead in Friday’s attack on a base in Jordan. The confirmation brings the death toll of US service members since the war began to 18.
On Monday, the Pentagon identified two other soldiers who were killed in Jordan in Friday’s attacks. The soldiers were killed by Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks in the first troop deaths from direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war.
Another US soldier was killed in action during a controlled detonation of a downed drone on Sunday at Erbil airbase in Iraq.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is still willing to pursue diplomacy with Iran, but insisted Tehran must show it is serious about talks.
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“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll, and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships. We have created a very dangerous precedent,” Rubio said at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila, Philippines.
He added that the US would defend the principle of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress on Tuesday that the cost of the war on Iran had reached $37.5bn. He said the Pentagon needed $90bn in additional funding.
Hegseth faced considerable pushback from Democrat lawmakers.
Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who is up for re-election later this year, challenged Hegseth’s previous claim that Iran’s military had been “destroyed” in light of his demand for more funding.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said he plans to attack a suspected Iranian nuclear site called Pickaxe Mountain “pretty soon, and very heavily”.
Responding to Trump’s threats, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said there would be an expansion of attacks in the region if the US attacks the country’s nuclear sites.
With violence escalating, mediators have stepped up efforts to end the hostilities, as Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni held talks with senior Pakistani officials, including army chief Asim Munir, in Islamabad.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who is also foreign minister, held a telephone conversation with Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, to discuss “enhanced diplomatic efforts and closer coordination for de-escalation and strengthening security and stability in the region”, according to a statement by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Sheikh Mohammed “underlined the importance of all parties committing to diplomacy and executing what had been concurred on in the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
The US and Iran are competing for control of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway, with attacks resuming after the breakdown of the June 17 MoU.
Announcing the end of the 11th night of attacks, CENTCOM said, over the past three months, Iran had “attacked more than 30 commercial vessels transiting the international waterway vital for regional and global trade”.
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“The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation,” it said.
Despite the hostilities, CENTCOM claimed, the Strait of Hormuz “remains open for commercial vessel transit”, adding that, since early May, US forces “have helped facilitate the transit of approximately 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil”.