Iran said on Wednesday it had fired missiles and drones at the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and at a US air and helicopter base in the region, and that its Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) had separately struck a Liberian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz. The US military said its air defences had intercepted the missiles aimed at Bahrain and rejected Iran’s claim that its Fifth Fleet headquarters had been hit.
The IRGC said the missile launches were retaliation for what it described as a US strike on a “communications tower” on Qeshm Island in southern Iran — part of what Tehran calls the “arch defence” around the Strait of Hormuz — and a US attack on an oil tanker heading to Iran’s main export terminal at Kharg Island. The US military said earlier it had struck an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm in “self-defence.”
The vessel hit by the IRGC was identified as the Panaya, a Liberian-flagged tanker, Iranian state media IRIB reported. The strike comes a day after a US Hellfire missile disabled the engine room of the Botswana-flagged M/T Lexie — the sixth ship disabled since the US blockade of Iranian ports began on April 13.
US Central Command said three missiles fired at Bahrain were intercepted by US and Bahraini air defences, and that missiles fired at Kuwait “fell short or broke apart en route.” The IRGC warned that “any further aggression would be met with a different and more severe response.”
The exchange marks the most direct Iran-US military confrontation since the April 8 Pakistan-mediated ceasefire collapsed in May and the most significant escalation since the April 13 onset of the blockade. It lands as Iran continues a three-day state funeral for late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Mashhad and as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warns that nuclear-track talks could now stretch over months.
Sources: Newswire (citing CNN).
