US hits multiple targets in Iran as IRGC claims attacks on American bases in Kuwait and Jordan

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DUBAI — The US military announced on Thursday it had completed “a heavy wave of strikes against Iran” conducted in response to earlier Iranian attacks on American forces in the Middle East.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed Thursday it targeted Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan’s eastern desert with ballistic missiles, destroying three F-35 fighter jets and heavily damaging three others, according to Iranian media.

The IRGC statement came hours after a missile struck a house on Qeshm Island, killing three people during a wave of US attacks across southern Iran, according to Mehr News Agency

Following the US attacks, the IRGC had said it would hit back against the “aggressor”.

Kuwait said one worker was killed in an Iranian attack on a building of a Chinese company in the north of the country Thursday morning.

The IRGC claimed responsibility for an attack this morning on the Ali al-Salem military base in Kuwait which hosts US forces.

In a statement, the IRGC said its aerospace forces struck the deployment ramp and maintenance hangar housing US F-35 fighter jets at Al-Azraq Air Base with several ballistic missiles, describing the attack as a response to a US strike on two residential homes on Iran’s Qeshm Island.

The IRGC claimed that three F-35 aircraft were completely destroyed, while three others sustained heavy damage.

It also claimed that several officers, as well as technical and maintenance personnel, were killed in the attack.

Two drone hangars and a fuel tank for aircraft and military helicopters were set on fire and destroyed, said a statement reported by the Tasnim news agency.

The new strikes came hours after US President Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” after it targeted a base in Jordan that hosts US troops.

The latest wave of US strikes started at 20:00 ET on Wednesday (01:00 BST on Thursday) and lasted about an hour, with Central Command calling them a "powerful response to yesterday's attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East". All of Iran's missiles were intercepted, Centcom said.

The attack by the US targeted "military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities," Centcom wrote once the strikes were complete.

Iran said the islands of Qeshm and Abadan, both central to the oil industry, were among the areas hit.

Iranian state media said the latest strikes had killed three people on Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz, while other locations were also hit in the south and west of the country. Explosions were also reported in Khuzestan province, west of the country.

"A US attack on a residential home in the Chah Tangu neighborhood of Qeshm killed three members of a family: the father, the mother, and their two-year-old child," Fars reported citing the Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences.

Meanwhile, Jordan's armed forces said that air defence systems had successfully shot down five Iranian missiles targeting the Kingdom's territory on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the IRGC said it had targeted a US air base and a command center in Jordan "in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army".

It also said naval forces had struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after they "ignored warnings" and sailed along what it described as an "unsafe and illegal route" through the vital Gulf waterway.

The IRGC shot down a hostile drone over the southwestern port city of Bandar Imam Khomeini in the early hours of Thursday, according to Tasnim news agency.

The IRGC’s local unit said the unmanned aircraft was intercepted and destroyed in the city’s airspace. Debris from the downed drone crashed into a home in Bandar Imam Khomeini, but the incident resulted in no loss of life, it said.

After the drone was identified, an IRGC ordnance disposal team secured the wreckage, neutralised any potential hazards, and removed it from the site, Tasnim reported.

Elsewhere, drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the Egyptian port of Damietta, according to UK maritime security firm Ambrey.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker at the port, though no injuries were reported.

The flare-ups on multiple fronts after several days of relative calm raised the risk of a return to all-out war. It also underscored the difficulty of winding down a five-month conflict that has jolted the world economy and is unpopular domestically among Americans.

The fighting was also likely to raise concerns that Washington is further drawing down already diminished stockpiles of sophisticated munitions needed to defend its bases and allies.

Egypt, a close US ally and regional mediator, is one of the only countries in the Middle East to have been spared direct military action during the war. A strike by Iran or its allies, if confirmed, would mark a significant widening of the conflict, which has already spilled over to several states.

Asked during an Oval Office event if Iran was responsible for the strikes on the natural gas vessels, Trump responded: “It's a little more of the same.”

“In the meantime, we’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them," he added.