Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced in separate statements on September 9 that it struck two U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers with “powerful ballistic missiles” and hit a U.S. airbase in Jordan.
The IRGC identified the vessels as the destroyers DDG-119, the USS Delbert D. Black, and DDG-53, the USS John Paul Jones, which it said carry cruise missiles and Aegis integrated naval weapons systems.
U.S. Central Command, known as CENTCOM, gave a different account of the naval engagement. It said the IRGC targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the previous two days, but that the warship evaded the attacks and continued patrolling regional waters, with no American personnel harmed.
The IRGC’s Aerospace Force separately struck the al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan with a missile barrage, “inflicting heavy damage on the hostile forces,” the Corps said. It added that both solid- and liquid-fueled ballistic missiles were used in the attack.
The barrage targeted maintenance and repair hangars, aircraft preparation facilities and shelters housing F-35, F-16 and F-15 warplanes at the base, the IRGC said.
Jordan’s state news agency reported, citing the country’s armed forces, that Jordan’s air defenses destroyed 18 of 20 ballistic missiles fired from Iranian territory. It said two missiles fell in unpopulated areas and that there were no casualties.
In a separate statement issued later, the IRGC said: “The heroic IRGC Navy, in response to the aggression and hostility of the terrorist US military in its attack on five Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, targeted two US vessels and eight oil tankers in the area, inflicting heavy damage on them.”
The IRGC also said ten other ships were targeted after attempting to pass through a prohibited and unsafe area of the Strait of Hormuz, with the “provocation and support” of the United States.
“The Strait of Hormuz remains firmly under the surveillance and management of the capable and valiant IRGC Navy,” the statement said.
CENTCOM from its side said it destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers on September 8 — the tankers Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1 and Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, and Derya near Kharg Island after the recent attack on a warship. It said American forces directed the crews to abandon ship before the tankers were struck and rendered inoperable, and that Iran has used such tankers as part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network funding the IRGC and its regional allies.
The U.S. attack on the tankers was likely meant to deter Iran. The attempt, however, failed as evident by the Islamic Republic’s fierce response. More escalation is to be expected by both sides. However, a return to full-on war remains highly unlikely.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence
NOW hosted at southfront.press
Previously, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.org.
The .org domain name had been blocked by the US (NATO) (https://southfront.press/southfront-org-blocked-by-u-s-controlled-global-internet-supervisor/) globally, outlawed and without any explanation
Back before that, from 2013 to 2015, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.com




still countries have the resources to ruin each others infrastructure via military
versus
desperately attempting apocalypse restorations, which they will be fully unable to maintain
but redhead parrot will say again the strait is open and iran is defeated 47th time! poor ecology of persian gulf and arabian sea.
as a sodomized samoan punk w hebrew jizz dripping from my anuz my only god is jizz