{"id":750105,"date":"2026-07-08T08:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750105\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:05:10","slug":"iran-targets-american-military-sites-in-the-gulf-after-wave-of-u-s-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750105\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran targets American military sites in the Gulf after wave of U.S. attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran launched attacks against American bases in the Gulf on Wednesday, retaliating for a new wave of strikes by the U.S. military after it said Tehran hit three commercial ships<\/a> in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The intense exchange raised fears for the fragile ceasefire as the two countries try to agree to a lasting end to the war that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes in February.<\/p>\n

It came as President Donald Trump<\/a> was in neighboring Turkey for a summit of NATO<\/a>, the U.S.-led military alliance. Iran, meanwhile, was holding a mass, dayslong funeral for its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Restoring maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a key global trade route, has been at the heart of ongoing disputes between Washington and Tehran. Iran has argued that it has a right to charge fees for ships passing through the strait. <\/p>\n

Negotiations had been on pause until the end of the funeral proceedings Thursday, but the renewed attacks will raise further doubts about the peace process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe era of bullying and extortion is over,\u201d Iran\u2019s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. \u201cIt leads nowhere. We don\u2019t fold.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. and Iran exchange strikes<\/p>\n

U.S. Central Command said late Tuesday that it had completed its strikes and that more than 80 targets had been hit with precision munitions. They included Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 small boats of Iran\u2019s powerful Revolutionary Guard in and near the strait to \u201cdegrade Iran\u2019s ability\u201d to attack ships in the waterway.<\/p>\n

A U.S. official described the strikes as bigger than previous U.S. retaliatory strikes against the Islamic Republic and said they were carried out with Air Force jets and Navy tactical aircraft.<\/p>\n

The command said earlier that the \u201cseries of powerful strikes\u201d were a response to \u201cIran\u2019s demonstrated aggression,\u201d describing it as \u201cunwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.S. official also told NBC News that the attacks were carried out specifically because of Iranian strikes on ships in the strait. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis response is a direct result of the acts of international terrorism that have been perpetrated by Iran on innocent ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d the U.S. official said. \u201cThe Iranians know the consequences to their ridiculous actions, yet they still chose to carry out these attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A video posted online and verified by NBC News shows multiple explosions at a port in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas as a stream of cars drive by on a nearby road. <\/p>\n

Several people were injured by shrapnel from explosions at the commercial pier in the town of Sirik, which is in the Strait of Hormuz, and were transferred to a hospital in the nearby city of Minab, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Early Wednesday, missile alerts sounded in both Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait, which is home to U.S. Army forces. <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard said it had conducted a joint missile and drone operation against 85 key U.S. military sites in Bandar Salman, the U.S. Fifth Fleet area in Bahrain, and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. It also said that it had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s child-killing and terrorist military, during the early hours of this morning, openly violated the ceasefire and breached the Islamabad understanding by carrying out airstrikes against several coastal bases and civilian stations along the coasts of Hormozgan Province and Mahshahr,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon hasn\u2019t commented on those claims and it\u2019s unclear whether any U.S. sites suffered damage.<\/p>\n

Hormuz ship attacks<\/p>\n

A similar exchange of attacks took place in late June, with an Iranian attack on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz followed by U.S. military strikes in and around the strait and retaliatory Iranian attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. on Tuesday also revoked its waiver of temporary sanctions<\/a>, which had allowed the sale of Iranian oil on the global market, because of Iran\u2019s attacks. <\/p>\n

The revoked waiver, listed on the Treasury Department\u2019s website<\/a>, said the move was effective immediately. It also said any production, delivery or sale of Iranian oil must be wound down by July 17. The waiver had originally allowed sales <\/a>until Aug. 21.<\/p>\n

The U.S. said Iran had attacked three tankers flagged to Liberia, Saudi Arabia and the Marshall Islands.<\/p>\n

One tanker was traveling off Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack<\/a> after it ignored warnings but did not directly claim the assault or any other attacks on ships.<\/p>\n

The two other ships sustained some damage, but no one was injured, and both continued on their way, the U.K. maritime agency said.<\/p>\n

Oil prices surged from around $69 a barrel to nearly $73 with the latest developments, after weeks of relative calm in oil markets. <\/p>\n

Talks on hold amid funeral<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner traveled to Doha, Qatar, last week and held talks with Qatari mediators but did not meet directly with Iranian negotiators who were also in Doha. <\/p>\n

Among the most difficult issues to be negotiated are possible restrictions on Iran\u2019s nuclear program and its stockpile of enriched uranium. <\/p>\n

The talks appear to have been paused this week as Iran held the massive funeral events for its former supreme leader, who was killed in the opening salvo of the war.<\/p>\n

Mojtaba Khamenei, his 56-year-old son, was named his successor in March but has not appeared in public or even issued an audio statement since he assumed the highest post in the country.<\/p>\n

Khamenei\u2019s casket was displayed Tuesday in Qom, the Iranian seat of religious scholarship, and Iranian officials have said funeral events will take place Wednesday in Iraq, which is home to two of the holiest shrines for Shiites. <\/p>\n

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was in the Iraqi city of Najaf for the funeral ceremonies, left for Tehran after the U.S. strikes on Iran, state media reported.<\/p>\n

Taking the funeral across the border to Iraq will allow the Revolutionary Guard, the most powerful military, political and economic force in Iran, to highlight its regional prominence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran launched attacks against American bases in the Gulf on Wednesday, retaliating for a new wave of strikes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-750105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}