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Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on airbases in Jordan after the United States attacked Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, the first such strikes in a month.
“I can confirm that earlier today US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak island,” a US official said on Sunday. “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the strait of Hormuz.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said the US attack killed and wounded several soldiers and citizens and would be met with a “response and punishment” from Tehran, Iranian state media reported.
In response, the IRGC “targeted technical infrastructure, maintenance facilities, and enemy fighter jet positions at the US-operated King Hussein and al-Azraq airbases in Jordan” with ballistic missiles, causing “heavy damage”, according to state TV.
A spokesperson said the US would pay for the attack economically and militarily, according to the semi-official news agency Fars.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported the US attack was a drone strike.
On Sunday night, Reuters reported a US source as saying that all incoming missiles on US forces in Jordan had been intercepted with no significant impact so far.
The exchange of strikes came shortly after the US-Iran war hit the six-month mark, and at a time when hostilities had been subsiding.
The US said its attacks were aimed at preventing Iran from launching more sea mines into the strait, days after it announced it had completed clearing explosives from the strategic waterway.
Donald Trump said last week that all mines had been detonated or removed from the international waters of the strait of Hormuz and Iran had been told that any ship or boat placing new mines would be destroyed.
The last known US strikes on Iran were in late July and the war has reached a stalemate in recent weeks, with Washington threatening to impose costly sanctions on countries that support Iran.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February and Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. The Iran war has now crossed its six-month mark.
Diplomatic efforts, spearheaded by mediators including Pakistan and Qatar, have tried for months to bring an end to the war to no avail.
While a ceasefire was agreed in April and a memorandum of understanding towards a final peace deal was signed in June, no agreement has been forthcoming and Washington has since declared “economic warfare” against Tehran.
US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions. Eighteen US service members have been killed in the conflict.
The war has led to the blockade of the strait of Hormuz, which before the conflict accounted for the transit of about a fifth of the world’s oil barrels consumed.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
