US launches ‘heavy’ strikes on Iran after attempted attack on American troops

But following the Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan on Tuesday, Trump vowed to retaliate, telling reporters at the White House: “We’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them. They know it’s coming. They asked us not to do it.”

The latest wave of US strikes started at 20:00 ET on Wednesday (01:00 BST on Thursday) and lasted about an hour, with Centcom 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.

Iranian state media agency Irib reported that the islands of Qeshm and Abadan, both central to the oil industry, were among the areas hit.

“A US attack on a residential home in the Chah Tangu neighbourhood of Qeshm killed three members of a family: the father, the mother, and their 2-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 centre 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.