File image.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on July 13 that it had inflicted heavy damage on several United States military facilities across Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman as part of a five-phase retaliatory operation, describing it as a response to American strikes on Iranian coastal areas.
The IRGC released a series of statements in quick succession, laying out each phase of the operation that followed its initial round of retaliation.
In its account of the first phase, the IRGC said the U.S. struck Iranian coastal bases late on July 12 night, linking the incident to an earlier incident involving two vessels that had switched off their transponders and endangered navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
The guards said its forces responded by setting large missile depots and fuel storage tanks ablaze at Jordan’s Prince Hassan Air Base, attributing the strike to what it called “the honorable warriors of Islam.”
In the second phase, the IRGC’s Aerospace Force said it struck the U.S. drone command and control center at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain. It also said helicopter maintenance facilities and a hangar housing a P-8 Poseidon American maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft were destroyed at the same base.
The guards accused the U.S. of having “failed to learn any lessons from its recent defeats” at the hands of Iran’s armed forces.
In the third and fourth phases, the IRGC said it had completely destroyed fuel storage tanks and a Patriot air defense system at Kuwait’s Ali al-Salem Air Base, along with a long-range radar system at the Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base.
The IRGC’s Ground Force said it then targeted a U.S. Army surface-to-surface missile base in Kuwait, setting two HIMARS launchers and ammunition bunkers on fire and destroying them.
In the fifth phase, the IRGC Navy said it struck the Naval Support Activity base in Bahrain’s Juffair district, describing large fires at the site, and also destroyed a long-range air surveillance radar and a maritime surveillance radar in Oman.
The IRGC said the operation had pushed the U.S. military into a state of desperation, pointing to an earlier American strike on an agricultural water pump in Iran’s Mahshahr County as evidence of what it described as American hostility toward ordinary people.
The guards further warned that the Strait of Hormuz would only reopen to shipping once U.S. military interference there ended entirely and coastal nations’ sovereignty over their own waters was respected, adding that continued interference would trigger larger disruptions to global oil and gas traffic.
It reiterated its claim to the waterway directly, saying “the Strait of Hormuz is our territory” and that it would not tolerate outside military interference there.
Separately, Iran’s regular army said its integrated air defense network had intercepted and destroyed a hostile drone over the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
According to the Army’s public relations office, a drone it identified as a “LUCAS” model was tracked and brought down by an air defense system.
Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, And Oman all confirmed that they were targeted by missiles and drones launched from the Islamic Republic.
Overnight, U.S. strikes hit cities and towns mostly in southern Iran — including Qeshm, Sirik, Bandar Abbas, Jask, Bushehr, Bandar Mahshahr, Behbahan, Andimeshk, Dezful, Ahvaz, Abadan, and Khorramshahr — along with Nain and Khondab in the center of the Islamic Republic.
One strike that hit a military site in Nain killed one person and wounded seven others, according to Akbar Salehi, Isfahan province’s deputy governor for security affairs.
Central Command (CENTCOM) later said in a statement that the strikes were carried out to “degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
The strikes hit air-defense systems, coastal radar sites, missile and drone capabilities, and small boats, according to the command.
“U.S. forces are postured and prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available to commercial shipping despite Iran’s continued unwarranted aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations,” CENTCOM’s statement reads.
The latest clash marks a continuation of the confrontation that erupted two days earlier, after an Iranian attack on a commercial ship attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without coordinating with authorities in the Islamic Republic. It is the most serious escalation since Iran and the U.S. signed a memorandum of understanding last month to end the war.
The deal has not yet collapsed. However, despite some positive reports, talks between the two sides have so far yielded little of substance. The status of the Strait of Hormuz remains just one of several sticking points. If the impasse continues, a return to full-scale war appears likely.
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we are wrecking the entire country of iran…heheheh