The U.S. military attacked Iran on Wednesday after President Donald Trump vowed to “beat the f---ing s--- out of” the country, according to Fox News, following new attacks on American forces in the Middle East.
“They’re going to get a beating,” Trump said, according to Fox’s chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yingst.
U.S. Central Command said a “heavy wave of strikes” had been completed at 10 p.m. ET, two hours after they began.
The strikes on dozens of targets “aimed to further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries,” the command said on X.
The comments followed what the U.S. described as a “surprise attack,” which prompted Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to retaliate against a Tehran-backed militia in Iraq.
Iran had suspended its attacks amid a renewed push to reach a deal with the U.S., but it warned this week that it would not allow Washington to dictate the “timing of war and peace” and maintained that the Strait of Hormuz was “closed.”
The sudden return of hostilities shattered the relative calm that had descended on Iran for several days after the U.S. paused daily strikes on the Islamic Republic to make room for peace talks.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched strikes on a U.S. air base and military central command center in Jordan, state-run Nour News agency reported early Wednesday local time. Its navy also struck three oil tankers that it said were “in violation” of its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the state-run news agency IRNA.
U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said on X that it had thwarted an “attempted surprise attack” on forces based in the Middle East around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. All Iranian missiles were intercepted, it said, but troops remained “vigilant and at a high state of readiness.”
Just hours later, CENTCOM said it had launched “precision strikes” in Iraq alongside the Saudi armed forces against “Iran-aligned terrorists” that it said the IRGC had directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.
CENTCOM did not name the militias it targeted. The Popular Mobilization Forces, a grouping of dozens of mainly Shia pro-Iranian armed factions, said on X that a number of its headquarters in Iraq had been attacked and that several members had been killed. The attack was a “highly dangerous escalation” in the conflict, as well as a “violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” it said.
U.S. and Saudi fighters struck multiple logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a “strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours,” which it said were “unwarranted,” CENTCOM added.
“The IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further U.S. military response,” it warned.
The Saudi Defense Ministry appeared to separately acknowledge the strikes, warning on X that “the Kingdom emphasizes that it does not seek escalation but will respond to any aggression it faces.”
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London’s School of Security Studies, said Iran most likely launched its “surprise” attack in a bid to “shape the negotiations through force, not because it had abandoned diplomacy.”
He added that the timing of the strikes, right around President Donald Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, also felt “deliberate,” with Iran signaling that “any new American or Israeli campaign would face an immediate response.”
Oil prices soared Wednesday as the renewed hostilities threatened a potential escalation of an already spiraling war that has largely shuttered the Strait of Hormuz for months amid Iran’s blockade of the key trade route. The U.S. is also blockading Iranian ports along the waterway, through which 20% of the world’s oil passed before the conflict began.
The conflict has also expanded to the Red Sea after the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20, with shipping traffic drastically slowed along both Hormuz and Bab el Mandeb straits.
Expressing optimism amid the renewed diplomatic efforts aboard Air Force One, Trump said Monday that he believed there was a “chance we can make a deal.”
It was not the first time that Trump has expressed optimism over negotiations to end war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, only for hostilities to resume soon after.
Trump has repeatedly walked back threats to order sweeping attacks on infrastructure across Iran, but speaking over the phone on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” earlier Tuesday, he said that if a deal could not be reached, he would “finish the job.”
NBC News reported last week, citing two senior officials, that U.S. military commanders were allowing some Iranian attacks through U.S. defenses as part of an effort to preserve the Defense Department’s weapons supply. NBC News has also reported that American weapons stockpiles are diminishing as the war with Iran drags on.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the U.S. has “everything that it needs” for military operations against Iran, dismissing those reports.
