Iran attacks US bases in Jordan, Bahrain in retaliation
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Tehran: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had launched strikes against US bases and assets in the region in retaliation for US attacks on southern Iranian provinces earlier in the day that killed at least five people and wounded more than 50 others.
In a statement published on its official news outlet Sepah News on Tuesday night (local time), the IRGC said its “regret-inducing response against the aggressors” had begun. It also said its air defence systems had shot down a “hostile” US MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The IRGC’s aerospace forces also launched ballistic missile and drone strikes targeting Camp Titin in Jordan and Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, reportedly killing “a large number of” US troops and destroying several key facilities and combat helicopters.
The IRGC warned that the US strikes would only prolong the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and make Iran’s armed forces more determined to “suppress the foreign forces interfering in the waterway”.
According to the IRGC, the attacks began after the US bombed several civilian locations along Iran’s southern coast “out of desperation”. It described the US action as retaliation for what it called a “criminal” and deadly US attack on a wedding ceremony in Hormozgan province, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Jordanian Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) later said its air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered Jordanian airspace from Iran on Tuesday evening.
The remaining three missiles fell in remote areas away from population centres, and no casualties or loss of life were reported, according to a JAF statement.
The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Ahmad Nafisi, Hormozgan’s deputy governor for political and security affairs, as saying that at least five people, including a four-year-old child and a woman, were killed and more than 50 others wounded in the US attack targeting the wedding ceremony in Sirik county.
Multiple explosions were reported on Tuesday evening across several southern Iranian provinces as the US Central Command announced on X that it had begun strikes against IRGC targets.
Iranian media reported explosions in Sirik, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Jask counties in Hormozgan province; Konarak and Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchestan province; Jiroft in Kerman province; and Asaluyeh in Bushehr province.
Iran’s main military command, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a statement that the Iranian armed forces would respond to the US “air aggression” with “crushing and shattering” blows against the United States.
With IANS inputs