DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military launched airstrikes Sunday targeting Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to retaliate for the killing of American troops in Jordan, further widening the crossfire between the nations as they fight over Strait of Hormuz.
The strikes, now part of a weeklong campaign that has seen Iran strike U.S.-allied countries across the Middle East, comes as an interim deal seeking to find an end to the Iran war has collapsed.
The U.S. has targeted bridges, electrical facilities and other targets in Iran, and Tehran has retaliated by hitting power and desalination plants in Kuwait, threatening daily life in that small, oil-rich desert nation. Iran also has stepped up its threats to further expand the strikes, drawing a warning overnight from the United Arab Emirates, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Latest U.S. strikes come after troops killed
The U.S. military’s Central Command in its statement also said it hit “Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities and missile and drone storage sites.” It also said for the first time it specifically targeting the Guard, a key power base in Iran’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal.
Footage released by the U.S. military appeared to show strikes carried out by fighter jets and by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from sea. One target site appeared to be in a valley of a mountainous region. The Guard often has missile bases and other military equipment tucked into mountain ranges.
Iran has provided no overall information on its materiel losses in the American campaign, which now is in its eighth day as the nations vie over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime.
An Iranian attack on a base in Jordan killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalization, the U.S. military said.
Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Iranian authorities said Saturday that at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in the latest U.S. strikes.
