The US military carried out additional strikes Tuesday on Iran, prompting Tehran to attack Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait in defiance of a warning from President Donald Trump that Iran would be “hit much harder” if it retaliated.
The latest round of tit-for-tat strikes began after the US and Iran traded attacks overnight into Monday for the first time in over a month, in exchanges that risked reigniting the damaging conflict after weeks of relative military calm.
After the fresh US strikes were announced, Trump warned that Iran would face more severe military action if it retaliated against what he called a “very justified attack.”
“They will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” he wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
Iran, however, vowed a “crushing” response and launched ballistic missiles toward Jordan and drones toward Bahrain and Kuwait, saying it was targeting US military assets.
Iranian Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi said Wednesday that 18 people were killed and 108 others wounded in US attacks across multiple provinces overnight, according to state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Among those killed were four people attending a wedding celebration, including a child, after shrapnel from one of the US strikes hit a house in a village bordering the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran claimed on Tuesday.
In addition, seven people were killed in strikes in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported, citing a regional official.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres is “gravely concerned” by the exchange of fire, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said Wednesday.
Guterres is “deeply alarmed by reports of civilian casualties, including a strike that reportedly hit a wedding ceremony in Iran,” he told reporters.
In a statement to CNN, a US military spokesperson said US Central Command (CENTCOM) has seen reports about the Iranian claim. He denied that the US targets civilians in Iran.
“We are aware of reports, which originated from Iranian state media. The U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said Wednesday, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The US strikes were in response to recent attempted Iranian attacks “against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and American troops deployed to the region,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.
CENTCOM releases video of strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran
Since the US strikes on Sunday, two tankers have been struck by projectiles, according to maritime intelligence group Marisks and the traffic monitoring agency United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). Iran and the US are in a protracted battle over the narrow waterway, which is critical to global energy supplies.
CENTCOM said Tuesday’s strikes targeted “air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities, and communications sites” associated with the IRGC. The strikes began at 12 p.m. ET, and CENTCOM announced they were complete more than six hours later.
Trump said Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office that Iran was “trying to see the ships,” and the US hit their capability to do so.
“They can’t see it because they have no radar, because we blew it up, and we blew up much more than their radar last night,” he said.
The flare-up in fighting occurred even though Trump previously telegraphed plans to shift away from a military campaign and toward a strategy focused on ramping up economic pressure.
“I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday night, after Iran retaliated. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing.”
After the US announced the new strikes, oil futures climbed above $94 a barrel.
On the diplomatic front, officials in Pakistan claimed they were “not discouraged” by the spike in violence. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry “remains engaged” with Tehran and Washington, Tahir Andrabi, a spokesperson, told reporters Wednesday. He insisted that the strikes “should not be termed as a failure of the mediatory process.”
Jordan said it intercepted 10 missiles from Iran, while three others fell in remote locations far from populated areas. No casualties were reported, Jordan’s military said.
Kuwait and Bahrain said they also activated air defense systems intercepting drones from Iran. Tehran also claimed to have launched a combined missile and drone attack on Erbil in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
The US attacks, meanwhile, struck multiple locations across Iran.
The neighboring Iranian port cities of Chabahar and Konarak on the Gulf of Oman, which host key commercial, maritime and military infrastructure, also came under attack. And explosions were heard east of Bandar Abbas and around Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, state-linked media said.
Iran’s state-run Press TV said the strikes also hit the small regional Jiroft Airport in southeastern Iran and a fishmeal factory on Qeshm Island in the strait.
Separately, an explosion was heard in Iran’s southern county of Asaluyeh, a key gas and petrochemical hub on the Persian Gulf coast, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
Iranian authorities have claimed that several people, including a 4-year-old child, were killed and that at least 68 others were wounded when shrapnel fell on a building hosting a wedding celebration in the coastal village of Kuhestak in southern Iran’s Sirik county, according to Press TV.
In footage released by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, purporting to show the aftermath of a US strike, heavy smoke can be seen hanging in the air above rubble on the ground. All around, people can be heard shouting. CNN geolocated the imagery to a residential neighborhood in Kuhestak.
A large communications tower in Kuhestak was also badly damaged on Tuesday night, video showed. The tower was located about 135 meters (442 feet) from the building hosting the wedding reception.
At least 19 of the wounded were children under the age of 10, including seven boys and 12 girls, the Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted a regional health official as saying.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, condemned the attack as part of a “catalogue of atrocities” committed by the US, and he criticized the global community’s “normalization of bombing.” Baghaei also denounced CENTCOM’s denial of targeting civilians in Iran, describing the strike as a “brutal war crime” in a post on X on Wednesday.
The attack was covered widely across Iranian state media, prompting outrage on Iranian social media and the quick publication of a Lego-style animated video –– the kind that has become a mainstay of Iranian propaganda throughout the war.
CNN has been unable to independently verify the details of the alleged strike.
Kuhestak is just 37 kilometers (about 22 miles) from the city of Minab, where a US strike hit an elementary school in February, killing at least 168 children and 14 teachers, according to Iran.
The fighting resumed as the US and Iran remained locked in a struggle over the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran claims the right to control but the US says is an international waterway.
The strait has been a chokepoint for global energy supplies since the war broke out, but in recent weeks more oil has been flowing through it.
The US claimed that it launched its strikes on Sunday because Iran was trying to use rockets to plant new sea mines in the strait. Tehran responded by firing at what it called US military targets in the Middle East.
Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that the US gave Arab allies in the Persian Gulf a heads-up before its latest strikes, and he criticized Iran’s leadership. “I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” the president said, later adding: “They don’t stop: They’re crazy, and they’re stupid.”
Trump told Fox that the US went after radar systems that Tehran had tried to rebuild. “They tried to rebuild their radar because they can’t see anything,” he said. “We waited until it was almost built, and then we hit it.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly dismissed concerns about Iran’s long-term hold on the strait.
“In two years, the Strait of Hormuz will be like a worthless piece of water — the oil will be going on pipelines across land,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Larry Kudlow on Tuesday during an interview at a Group of 20 meeting. He was referring to plans by Arab states in the gulf to build infrastructure that bypasses the strait completely.
Bessent also claimed that the Treasury Department’s new push to cut off Iran’s economy from the rest of the world would eventually force the regime to surrender, characterizing his job as to “make sure that they want to have a deal.”
“We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime,” Bessent said. “The world is tired of this pariah state, or this rogue state, and they are willing to make it a pariah.”
He added that after initially targeting a bank in Dubai for its alleged ties to Iran, the Treasury Department is likely to sanction two more banks in the next couple weeks.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo, Matt Egan, Aida Karimi, Hira Humayun, Eyad Kourdi, Azaz Syed and Kaanita Iyer contributed reporting.
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