U.S. has launched ‘large and powerful’ strikes on Iran, Trump says

The U.S. has launched “large and powerful” strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump said Tuesday in a post on Truth Social. Trump said that the attack was “retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait,” adding that the mines had been “removed and detonated.” They were also a response to an Iranian missile launch at an American military base in Jordan. Were the Islamic Republic to retaliate, Trump said “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.” When that was over, he added “there will be very little left” of the country. In response, Iran’s armed forces general staff said in a statement on Telegram that it would “impose a heavy cost on the American enemy.” The more the “U.S. military insists on its hostile actions in the region, the greater and heavier the losses it will have to bear,” it added. Iranian state TV said the U.S. struck a fishmeal factory on Qeshm Island in the strait as well as several civilian targets in Hormozgan province. It said a fishing pier and a Ports and Maritime Organization tower in Sirik were among the sites hit.Trump’s post came two days after Washington and Tehran exchanged fire for the first time in a month. On Sunday, U.S. forces targeted two rocket launchers on Larak Island, home to a key port in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. strikes were the first known attack by American forces since late July, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, said several of its “fighters and compatriots” had been killed and injured.It was the first major military escalation in weeks in the war which began when American and Israeli forces launched an assault on Iran in late February, killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.After vowing “punishment” in response to Sunday’s U.S. strikes, the IRGC announced later that day that it had launched attacks against U.S. military bases in Jordan. Jordan’s military said it intercepted at least eight missiles on Monday. The same day, the defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said its air force “engaged” at least one drone over its territorial waters after Iran launched drones at an air base in the country.