{"id":481618,"date":"2026-03-18T05:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/481618\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T05:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:11:07","slug":"irans-army-leader-vows-decisive-retaliation-for-death-of-security-chief-in-israeli-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/481618\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran&#8217;s army leader vows &#8216;decisive&#8217; retaliation for death of security chief in Israeli strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US hits Iranian missile sites near Strait of Hormuzpublished at 04:43 GMT<\/p>\n<p>04:43 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The US military says it has struck Iranian missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz with powerful bombs that are capable of penetrating bunkers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a post on X, the US Central Command said US forces had &#8220;successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites&#8221; along Iran&#8217;s coastline of the strait.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait,&#8221; the US military says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iran\u2019s effective closure of the waterway &#8211; through which roughly 20% of the world\u2019s oil shipments move &#8211; has sharply disrupted maritime traffic and contributed to rising global oil prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The huge bombs, called &#8220;bunker busters&#8221; \u2013 which reportedly cost an estimated $288,000 each \u2013 are less powerful than the 30,000-pound (13,600kg) bombs the US used last year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cvg9r4q99g4o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">when it attacked three underground nuclear sites<\/a> in Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unlike conventional bombs, bunker busters are not designed to explode in the air, on the ground or surface of a target. They are encased in heavy, hardened steel and are made to penetrate deep into the ground before detonating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US hits Iranian missile sites near Strait of Hormuzpublished at 04:43 GMT 04:43 GMT The US military says&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-481618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}