US Strikes Dozens of Iran Sites After Jordan Missile Attacks
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Centcom completed a "heavy wave" of strikes hitting "dozens" of IRGC targets in Iran starting at 20:00 ET Wednesday, lasting about an hour, targeting military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance sites, and maritime capabilities — and all of Iran's incoming missiles were intercepted, Centcom said.
- Iranian state media reported strikes killed three members of a family — a father, mother, and their 2-year-old child — on Qeshm island, with the oil-industry islands of Qeshm and Abadan among the areas hit.
- Iran's IRGC had fired ballistic missiles at a US air base and command centre in Jordan and struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that it said sailed an "unsafe and illegal route," calling it retaliation for the "American child-killing army."
- Jordan's armed forces said air defence systems shot down five Iranian missiles targeting the Kingdom's territory on Thursday.
- Trump met Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, who conveyed that Saudi Arabia wants to de-escalate, even as the conflict expanded with the first publicly announced joint US-Saudi strikes hitting Iranian-proxy PMF bases in Iraq.
- Iraq's presidency denounced the joint US-Saudi strikes on PMF bases as "an unacceptable attack and a blatant violation of Iraq's sovereignty"; Iraq's paramilitary said at least 20 PMF members were killed, though Trump told Fox News the strikes were "co-ordinated with the Iraqi government."
- Both sides had halted strikes for days as talks appeared to restart, with Trump calling them "very friendly negotiations" — though Tehran denied any discussions were happening — before Trump's vow: "We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them."
Why it matters: The strikes mark a sharp escalation beyond the 13-night bombing campaign Trump suspended last Friday, with the conflict now killing civilians on Qeshm and Abadan — both central to Iran's oil industry — drawing Iraqi sovereignty complaints and Saudi covert de-escalation pressure, and putting the Strait of Hormuz's tanker traffic in IRGC crosshairs.
