The United States military announced on Tuesday that it carried out strikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) targets located within Iran. According to a statement issued by US Central Command (CENTCOM) via the platform X, these military actions were a direct response to recent attempted attacks by the IRGC, which targeted commercial shipping vessels in the Strait of Hormuz as well as American service members currently deployed to the region.
Reports from Iran’s Fars news agency indicated that explosions were audible in the areas of Bandar Abbas, Sirik, and Qeshm. Furthermore, local authorities in the districts of Chabahar and Konarak also documented strikes in their respective areas. Hostilities in the waterway resumed on Sunday when the US military conducted strikes against what it identified as IRGC minelaying forces in the Strait of Hormuz; this marked the first US military action in the transit zone in a month.
The IRGC confirmed that strikes had impacted Larak Island and subsequently issued a warning regarding a potential retaliatory response. On Monday, the IRGC claimed that its forces had carried out attacks against two US bases in Jordan and one base in the United Arab Emirates. However, the UAE's Ministry of Defence officially denied that its Al Menhad air base had been targeted.
CENTCOM rejected Iranian assertions that the Sunday strikes constituted an act of aggression, maintaining instead that its forces acted to neutralize an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz. The command emphasized that the waterway is a strategic route carrying approximately one-quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade. "In essence, Iran created the threat and the U.S. military eliminated it to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce," the statement read. The two nations have remained in conflict since late February, following an initial wave of strikes launched by the US and Israel. Since those events, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, making the waterway a central issue in ongoing peace negotiations.
