US Strikes Iran a Second Time in 48 Hours as Tehran Retaliates

United States forces struck Iranian targets on Tuesday for the second time in under 48 hours, as tensions over the Strait of Hormuz intensified further. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded during the night of Tuesday into Wednesday with attacks on American military bases in Jordan, according to a communiqué issued by the Guard itself. No US casualties had been recorded in the Iranian strikes on the Jordanian installations, official sources told Reuters.

Iran's state news agency Tasnim reported that Iranian forces attacked the Jordanian air base — where American troops are stationed — on Tuesday night. The Guard's statement declared: "A decisive operation has begun by Iran's armed forces in response to the American enemy." Jordanian state television reported that air-raid sirens were activated across the country.

US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, confirmed in a statement published on social media that strikes against Revolutionary Guard targets began at approximately midday Washington time — 18:00 Spanish peninsular time. CENTCOM stated that the attacks were "in response to recent attempts by the Revolutionary Guard to target merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and US military personnel deployed in the area." The Florida-based command did not specify the nature or precise location of the targets. Iranian state television reported that Jiroft airport, in the south-east of the country, was among the sites struck. Iranian state media, cited by the agency EFE, reported that missiles also hit Bandar Abbas air base and the localities of Sirik, Jask, Qeshm, and Chabahar.

Iranian authorities alleged on Tuesday that four people, including a minor, were killed and more than 50 wounded during a wedding celebration following a US airstrike in the locality of Kuhestak, in Sirik county, in the southern province of Hormozgan. These claims had not been independently verified at the time of reporting.

President Donald Trump confirmed the new wave of strikes in a post on social media. "The attacks are big and powerful, and are in retaliation for the Iranians' failed attempt to lay more mines in the strait [of Hormuz], where there are currently no mines," he wrote. He added that the strikes also responded to the launch of "eight missiles, all successfully shot down," against a US military base in Jordan. In a brief telephone interview with Fox News, Trump went further, warning that if Iran responds to the new wave of bombardment it would be "completely exterminated as a country." He repeated a threat he had also issued on Monday of a further strike "much more powerful and at a higher level" should Iran retaliate.

The current escalation follows an earlier round of American strikes on Iranian drone and missile warehouses, radar installations, and vessels, themselves carried out as a reprisal for Iranian attacks on two Saudi commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

The US embassies in Jordan and Qatar issued security advisories warning of the possible escalation, flight cancellations, and airspace closures under the threat of further Iranian reprisals. Iran's Fars news agency cited a Revolutionary Guard spokesman as warning that the United States "will regret these new attacks."

The diplomatic background offers little prospect of de-escalation. The two countries signed an agreement in June that included a sixty-day ceasefire and a commitment to negotiate a permanent settlement covering both the future of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's nuclear programme. That deadline expired on 17 August with the process at a standstill and no further contacts between the parties. In his Fox News interview, Trump dismissed any prospect of renewed negotiations, describing a deal with Tehran as "a waste of paper" and stating that the US had already given Iran "many chances."

The new exchanges mark the first significant clash in roughly a month and come as Washington attempts to open alternative shipping routes through the strait. Before the conflict began on 28 February, the waterway carried approximately 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas supply; commercial throughput remains a fraction of pre-war levels, notwithstanding Trump's repeated assertion that the strait is open. His administration has also announced what it calls Operation Economic Pariah, a package of direct and secondary sanctions intended to pressure governments that sustain Iran's economy into withdrawing their support, with the stated aim of isolating Tehran sufficiently to force it to capitulate.