American military forces launched new strikes on Iran Wednesday night, according to the U.S. Central Command, hours after President Trump pronounced the end of an eight-week ceasefire.
The strikes were designed to “further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” according to a Centcom statement.
“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.”
Explosions were reported in Bandar Abbas and Sirik, the same sites that U.S. strikes hit in Tuesday night’s round of attacks, according to Iranian media.
The latest strikes, the second round in just 24 hours, were the starkest sign yet that efforts to clinch a permanent peace agreement are unraveling. In addition to ordering strikes on Tuesday, Trump also revoked a license allowing Iran to sell oil on the open market, eliminating the primary economic benefit for Tehran of an interim peace deal with the U.S.
Speaking in Ankara, Turkey earlier in the day, Trump said he believed the ceasefire deal was over and warned that the U.S. would likely carry out more strikes.
“We hit them very hard last night…we’ll probably hit them hard again tonight,” Trump told reporters at a NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday. “I’ll give them a little warning, we’re going to hit them hard tonight.”
During the remarks, Trump called Iran’s leaders “scum,” “liars,” and “vicious, violent people,” threatened to reimpose a naval blockade on Tehran, and raised the prospect of targeting civilian infrastructure in future military strikes.
The latest escalation began earlier in the week when Iran launched missiles and drones on three ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, including a liquefied natural-gas tanker. On Tuesday, the U.S. military said it hit more than 80 targets in and near the strait. Iran responded with strikes of its own on Bahrain and Kuwait, both of which host U.S. military bases.
The tit-for-tat exchanges follow weeks of negotiations after Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran in June that called for pausing the war for 60 days and reopening the strait, while the two countries negotiated more difficult issues. But Iran has tried to control the crucial waterway, warning ships to only use its approved route.
On Tuesday, explosions were reported in Sirik, Qeshm and Bandar Abbas, sites in or near the strait, according to Iranian media. Abu Musa island and the Tunbs islands in the strait were also struck, the senior U.S. official said.
U.S. forces targeted those sites during the war that started on Feb. 28 until the ceasefire went into effect on April 7. But since then Iran has reconstituted its military capability in that area, the official said, for example moving in small, portable radars to replace the fixed sites that were destroyed.
Since the ceasefire, Iran has dug out or repaired hundreds of missiles and launchers that were damaged or buried in U.S. strikes, the official said. The regime now has access to more than half of the missiles and launchers it had before the conflict, the person said.
