Tehran: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that it has started strikes against US bases and assets in the region in retaliation for US attacks against southern Iranian provinces earlier in the day, which killed at least five and wounded over 50 others.
In a statement published on its official news outlet Sepah News Tuesday night (local time), the IRGC said its “regret-inducing response against the aggressors” has begun, noting its air defence had shot down a “hostile” US MQ-9 Reaper drone.
Its aerospace forces also launched ballistic missile and drone strikes on Camp Titin in Jordan and Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, reportedly killing “a large number of” US troops and destroying several key facilities and combat helicopters.
It stressed that the US strikes will only protract the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and make the Iranian armed forces more determined to “suppress the foreign forces interfering in the waterway.”
The IRGC said the attacks began after the United States bombed a number of civilian places on Iran’s southern coasts “out of desperation” and in retaliation for the US “criminal” and deadly attack on a wedding ceremony in Hormozgan province, reports Xinhua news agency.
The Jordanian Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) said later that the country’s air defence systems on Tuesday evening intercepted and destroyed 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered the country’s airspace from Iran in the past hours.
Three other missiles fell in remote areas away from population centres, with no casualties or loss of life reported, according to a JAF statement.
The semi-official Fars news agency cited Ahmad Nafisi, Hormozgan’s deputy governor for political and security affairs, as saying that at least five people, including a four-year-old child and a woman, were killed and over 50 others wounded in the US attack targeting the wedding ceremony in Sirik county.
Multiple explosions were heard Tuesday evening in several southern Iranian provinces as US Central Command, in a post on social media platform X, announced the start of strikes against IRGC targets.
The explosions were heard in the counties of Sirik, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Jask in Hormozgan, Konarak and Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Jiroft in Kerman province, and Asaluyeh in Bushehr province, Iranian media reported.
Iran’s main military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a statement that in response to the US “air aggression,” the Iranian armed forces will deal “crushing and shattering” blows to the United States.
(IANS)
