U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the arm of the Pentagon responsible for the Middle East, confirmed on Wednesday morning that it had engaged in a new round of air strikes against Iranian military missile launch sites after hours of similar targeted attacks on Tuesday.
CENTCOM explained that the objective of the new operations against Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is to erode Iran’s ability to bomb its neighbors and attack random civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic that Tehran returned to with gusto during funeral events for late dictator Ali Khamenei in early June. Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, explained in a statement this week that the Iranian terrorist state had escalated its attacks on civilians in an effort to disrupt global commerce in the Strait of Hormuz, necessitating a response.
“Over the past seven days, Iran has intentionally targeted civilians across the region by attacking seven commercial ships resulting in nearly a dozen civilian crew members killed, missing, or injured,” Admiral Cooper detailed in a statement on Tuesday. “Iranian forces have also launched dozens of missiles and drones toward neighboring Gulf countries. U.S. forces are holding Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression that continues to endanger innocent lives.”
One of Iran’s victims this week has been identified as an Indian national working on the Mombasa B, a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) controlled by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the state oil corporation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Several other crew members of various supertankers remain missing at press time and India, a nation with no direct involvement in the Washington-Tehran conflict, has lodged a formal protest over the death.
On Wednesday morning, CENTCOM announced that its campaign to make it impossible for Iran to continue posing such a threat continued with strikes on Iranian targets at 7:30 a.m. Eastern.
“CENTCOM launched precision munitions against coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island during the 90-minute wave,” the military command said. “The strikes further degraded Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The U.S. military published video of the strikes showing their efficacy.
The strikes followed a “seven-hour wave” of attacks by the U.S. military on Iranian targets on Tuesday. These attacks, according to CENTCOM, hit dozens of Iranian military targets with the same objective of defanging the IRGC near the Strait of Hormuz. The American military listed the targets during Tuesday’s round of strikes as “Iranian missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, and coastal defense systems.”
The Iranian armed forces claimed on Wednesday that American strikes had killed seven of its military servicemen, alleging the strikes hit a military barracks rather than missile launch sites or other relevant targets. Iran has also claimed that the U.S. activities killed 30 civilians in the past week, without offering evidence for this claim.
Hostilities erupted between America and Iran on February 28, when President Donald Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury” and announced the death of “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei. Iran replaced Khamenei with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, but the new purported “supreme leader” has yet to make a public appearance or release any new video or audio footage as proof of life, leaving unclear who is actually in charge of the Iranian government.
Trump announced a ceasefire in April that evolved into the signing of a “memorandum of understanding” with Iranian civilian leaders in late June. Those leaders organized funeral events for the elder Khamenei to correspond to the 250th birthday of the United States on July 4, which preceded a new round of attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global economies and sending oil prices skyrocketing. In response to these attacks, President Trump announced that the ceasefire was over, though he was open to continue negotiating with Iranian representatives. The status of the “memorandum of understanding,” which created a 60-day window for negotiations towards a nuclear peace deal, remains unclear at press time.
On Tuesday, President Trump told Fox News that he would soon expand strikes on Iran.
“I’ll save the energy targets for last, but, ultimately, we’ll hit energy targets, yeah. But we’re going to hit them very hard tonight,” he explained. “We’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them very hard the night after, and then, next week, it gets really bad for them, because next week comes the power plants, next week comes the bridges.”
“We’re going to knock out all of their power plants. We’re going to knock out all of their bridges, unless they get to the table and negotiate,” the president said.
In addition to targeting civilian commercial ships, Iran has responded to the strikes by attempting to bomb American military sites in the Middle East, particularly in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Qatar. On Wednesday, the IRGC announced that it had initiated a “new wave of missile and drone strikes” against Kuwait, insisting that it had no hostility towards Kuwait in particular. The IRGC claimed that it had targeted “a US satellite communications center, missile defense and air defense radar systems, a Patriot air defense complex, military logistics facilities, and HIMARS missile launch platforms.” CENTCOM has not confirmed if those strikes were successful.