US President Donald Trump and Iran’s previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo: AFP)
The US said airstrikes carried out on Sunday were aimed at “punishing” Iran after the first US military deaths since renewed hostilities with the Islamic republic.
Iran quickly announced its attacks, saying two US bases in Kuwait were targeted in response to more than a week of escalating attacks – which Tehran said included attacks on an airport, a train station and bridges.
A tentative agreement aimed at ending the war has collapsed as the rivals try to break the deadlock over the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway crucial to global oil transport.
The Iranian military announced on Sunday that it had targeted two American bases in Kuwait with drones and hit an ammunition depot at Camp Udairi, as well as Patriot radar and aerial surveillance systems at the Ali Al Salem Air Base.
Tehran also launched new attacks in Jordan, where the US military’s Central Command (Centcom) said two service members were killed on Friday while “defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks”.
According to Centcom, another service member is missing.
The deaths bring to 16 the confirmed death toll of US military personnel since US-Israeli strikes began the war on February 28.
The US military said it carried out strikes on Iran for the eighth consecutive night, with targets including units responsible for the attack that killed two US soldiers in Jordan.
The strikes were aimed at “swiftly punishing” forces from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which carried out attacks against American service members in Jordan the previous evening, US Central Command said.
The Iranian news agencies Fars and Tasnim simultaneously reported on American attacks on Sirik, a port city on the Strait of Hormuz in the south of Iran.
Illustrated photos. (Photo: Ibrahim Amro/AFP)
‘Unforgettable Lesson’
Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who took over from his father after he was killed in the initial US-Israeli attacks, promised in a statement broadcast by state television to teach the Americans an “unforgettable lesson”.
Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, a senior military adviser to Khamenei, warned that Tehran would resume “full-scale offensive operations” if US attacks continued in the coming days.
Iran’s central military commander, Ali Abdollahi, also warned that further US aggression would be met with a “decisive and devastating response”, according to a statement broadcast by state television on Sunday.
The renewed violence was initially triggered by Iranian attacks on ships in the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
Iran closed the strait after the war broke out, and control of the route has become a bargaining chip in negotiations with Washington, which reimposed its own blockade of Iranian ports on Tuesday.
The health ministry said on Friday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 injured since the renewed fighting broke out.
Power facilities
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday that US strikes killed three people and wounded eight in the southern province.
In Khuzestan province, according to the deputy provincial governor, eight people have died in the past ten days, Iran’s Tasnim reported.
Iran also said the supply of drinking water to several southern villages had been interrupted and accused the US of attacking power facilities and desalination plants in the village of Bonji, according to Tasnim.