The United States and Iran have exchanged a new round of attacks – the biggest in more than a month – raising fears of escalation into a wider regional war.
The US Central Command said it struck dozens of military targets along Iran’s southern coast.
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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Iran will be “totally wiped out” if it retaliates against the US attacks. “If they do respond, they’ll be hit much harder,” he told Fox News in an interview.
Iran has responded by firing ballistic missiles towards Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Tehran has accused the US of hitting a wedding party, killing at least four people.
Here is what’s happening in the US-Iran war.
Where did the US attacks hit?
Iran said that the US bombing of a house during a wedding celebration in the city of Kuhestak has killed at least four people. Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called it a “brutal” attack, where more than 68 people, including women and children, were wounded.
Footage published by the Iranian Red Crescent Society showed a building with walls and windows blown out, and debris scattered on the ground.
The humanitarian group also published pictures of several children receiving treatment at a hospital in Sirik, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz.
In addition to Kuhestak, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported explosions in coastal cities including Konarak, Bandar Abbas, Jask, and Asaluyeh, as well as Qeshm Island.
The second consecutive night of US attacks comes as Washington is jostling to wrest control over the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy chokepoint, which remains under Iranian blockade and has become Tehran’s bargaining chip.
Two locations near the cities of Ahvaz and Aghajari in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province were hit in missile attacks, the province’s deputy governor for security affairs said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB.
Seven people were killed at three locations in the province, and eight others were injured in the attacks, the IRIB reported.
In total, at least 18 people have been killed across Iran.
Where did Iran hit back?
Iran’s military said it launched attacks on US bases and assets in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq’s Erbil.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its forces carried out a combined missile and drone attack on US facilities in Erbil province in northern Iraq in retaliation for the US strike.
Iran claimed it hit the Sheikh Isa Airbase, which hosts US forces, in Bahrain. The IRGC said it launched a “heavy” ballistic missile attack on Prince Hassan airbase and a US Marine base in Jordan, and hit the headquarters and residence of the American commander of the Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait.
Tehran said its attack on Kuwait set fire to a drone hangar and a ramp through which UAVs participated in attacks on Iran, adding that several US drones were also destroyed, and claimed to have killed a number of US soldiers.
Kuwait reported intercepting drones and missiles but did not report any casualties. There was no immediate comment from Washington, either.
Jordanian armed forces said air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 10 of 13 Iranian ballistic missiles that entered the kingdom’s airspace earlier, with the remaining three falling in remote areas without causing casualties.
What are US, Iran saying?
Washington and Tehran have upped the ante in attacks and political rhetoric amid a diplomatic deadlock. Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran will reciprocate if the US returns to the terms of the June Memorandum of Understanding that halted the military hostilities. The two sides have failed to agree before the deal expired on August 17.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said his country “has unforgettable lessons for the American enemy”.
Baghaei, the Iranian spokesman, called for global action against the US strike on the wedding function.
“This cruelty cannot be separated from the chain of atrocities that preceded it,” he said, pointing to attacks on the city of Minab and Lamerd on the first day of the war.
In Minab, US forces struck an elementary school, killing more than 150 people, and in Lamerd, they hit a sport hall, killing at least 21 people.
“Iran will respond to these savage crimes with firmness,” Baghaei said. “Still, those governments and international institutions that remain silent in the face of such barbarism, or seek to justify such acts, must understand that their silence is not neutrality.”
In the US, Trump said he is not trying to force Iran back to the negotiating table, dismissing reports that Washington is seeking a new agreement with Tehran.
“I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
He added that Iran was “playing out the inevitable” and asked: “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
Alexandru Hudisteanu, a maritime security expert, told Al Jazeera that the recent escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran is unlikely to be a one-off “because this war has not been settled in military terms and both sides have the impetus to go to war from time to time”.
It can become “a repeatable pattern” although the war is no longer “in an active phase”, he said.
He added, “there are still conditions that create these flare-ups, especially because the US is trying to show that Iran does not have monolithic control over the Strait of Hormuz and on who passes through the strait.”
The talks over the status of Hormuz have been deadlocked, with Washington demanding an end to the Iranian blockade without any conditions while Tehran wants the US to end its naval blockade on its ports.
The latest escalation comes a week after the US imposed a slew of economic sanctions to pressure Iran to come to the negotiating table. Tehran says the US economic pressure will fail.
