The United States carried out new strikes inside Iran on Sunday after Tehran launched missiles toward Jordan, according to the Associated Press. Jordan’s military said it intercepted several missiles and reported no casualties or damage. Israel warned that missiles headed toward the Jordanian port of Aqaba could spill over, raising fears that the fighting could expand.
U.S. Central Command said the latest strikes were aimed at facilities tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, including coastal surveillance, air defenses, maritime assets, and sites storing missiles and drones, AP reported. The military described the operation as intended to degrade Iran’s ability to control the Strait of Hormuz and to punish the Guard following an attack that killed U.S. service members at a base in Jordan and left others missing or injured, according to AP.
AP said footage released by the U.S. appeared to show strikes from both aircraft and sea-launched missiles. Iranian state media said targets included areas near Sirik, Hajiabad, Bandar Abbas, and Qeshm Island, and the country’s atomic energy agency claimed a construction site for a planned nuclear power plant in the southwest was hit. Those Iranian accounts could not be independently verified in AP’s reporting.
The exchanges rippled across the region. AP reported that Kuwait and Bahrain activated air defenses Sunday while air-raid sirens sounded in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia earlier in the day. Jordan’s state news service said the country’s air defenses downed incoming missiles. Meanwhile, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s secretary-general accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure; that is an allegation by the GCC, as noted by AP.
Shipping and energy are squarely in the crosshairs. Central Command says recent U.S. strikes are designed to protect tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that handled a significant share of the world’s oil before the war, according to AP. Fox News Digital’s live updates, citing a statement from CENTCOM, said U.S. forces are enforcing a naval blockade of Iran, have redirected some commercial vessels, and disabled a vessel while carrying out those operations. AP also reported that the broader U.S. campaign, in recent days, has included strikes on bridges and other infrastructure inside Iran.
The Pentagon has not released the names of the Americans killed in Jordan, and AP reported that details about missing service members remain limited. The latest U.S. strikes, announced within hours of the deaths, mark another step in a fast-moving cycle of action and response stretching from the Gulf to the Levant.
Why it matters
This flare-up threatens to widen the conflict and upend shipping lanes that help set gas prices here at home. If tankers can’t move freely through the Strait of Hormuz, fuel and shipping costs could rise. Air-defense alerts in multiple countries also increase the risk of travel disruptions. And with American troops already in the region, every exchange carries the danger of more U.S. casualties.