Iran slams Gulf neighbors with strikes as US intensifies attacks
Tehran, Iran - In retaliation against the Trump administration's relentless and intensifying bombing campaign, Iran hit out at its Gulf neighbors and in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Monday that two oil tankers trying to transit the strait "exploded and were brought to a halt," according to a statement reported by the Tasnim news agency.
Tehran also announced it had hit targets in Syria, Jordan, and Kuwait overnight in retaliation against rapidly escalating assaults from US forces.
In Syria, Iranian forces launched "a surprise attack on the enemy special operations command center in the Al-Tanf region," according to an IRGC statement carried by state media.
In Jordan, the IRGC said it targeted US military aircraft stationed at Aqaba Airport "with ballistic missiles, causing severe damage to a number of them."
They also hit US military targets based in Kuwait, including an early-warning radar system that was "completely destroyed."
Kuwaiti air defenses were "engaging hostile drone attacks following Iranian aggression," its army said early Monday.
Bahrain's interior ministry also said its air raid sirens had sounded and urged citizens and residents to head to "the nearest safe place."
The fresh fighting came after a weekend in which the US announced three new US military fatalities and one service member missing in action.
Two were killed during Iranian missile and drone attacks on Jordan Friday, while another service member died in northern Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone.
President Donald Trump vowed on Sunday to intensify attacks on Iran and "hit them very hard" in honor of the latest US fatalities, which now total 17.
Washington's retribution campaign has been so intensive that the UN's nuclear watchdog was forced to call for restrain on Sunday after the US attacked an under-construction nuclear power plant.
Cover photo: AFP/Various Sources/–