TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran attacked American bases in Jordan and Bahrain on Wednesday, warning its Gulf neighbors that they had a “responsibility” to stop the United States and Israel from using their territory to strike the Islamic republic.
The strikes came after the US carried out its own attacks on Iran in response to the shooting down of an American helicopter, straining a ceasefire that took effect in April.
The attacks have cast doubt on US President Donald Trump’s earlier claim that negotiations were in their “final throes” before reaching an enduring settlement to end the Middle East war.
The war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, threw the region into chaos and rattled global markets before a shaky truce began.
Iranian forces fired “long-range missiles” and “targeted and destroyed four major targets” in Jordan, including F35 fighter nests at an air base and the US command center in Al-Azraq, the country’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement quoted by state-run IRNA news agency on Wednesday.
Jordan’s military said it shot down five missiles from Iran, with no casualties or material damage, while Bahrain said it intercepted and destroyed “a number of Iranian aerial attacks.”
An Agence France-Presse correspondent in Bahrain’s capital Manama said several loud explosions could be heard early in the morning, as Iran’s Guards said they had struck another US base there.
Elsewhere, the Kuwaiti military said its air defenses were engaging “hostile aerial targets.” Iran has recently carried out deadly attacks there, too.
The incidents came after the US military said it had “completed” what Trump portrayed as a retaliatory assault on Iran over the downing of an Apache attack helicopter.
US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said on X that it had “struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz with precision munitions from US Air Force and Navy fighter jets.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier threatened payback, saying on X: “The US (has) opted to test our determination. Our Powerful Armed Forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered.”
Deal or no deal?
During the US strikes, Iranian media reported at least two series of explosions along Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz.
Digital news outlet Axios reported that US forces had attacked several Iranian air defense systems and radar systems around the strait.
Hours earlier, Trump had said talks to end the three-month-long war were in their final stages — a claim he has made repeatedly in the past few weeks.
Asked whether it would be a matter of days or weeks, the US leader said it would take “two or three days.”
