American forces resumed strikes against Iran on Tuesday in Strait Of Hormuz military action after US Central Command accused the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of recent attempted attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. US forces began striking IRGC targets at 12:00 ET, widening a confrontation that has already moved through shipping, bases and southern Iran.
Donald Trump said Tuesday’s strikes were “large and powerful” and warned that Iran would be hit again at “a much harder and higher level” if it retaliated. The IRGC replied that “The US would regret the strikes.”
US Central Command and the Strait
US Central Command said the IRGC made “recent attempted attacks” against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and American service members deployed to the region. Trump also said Iran had “failed” at adding sea mines to the Strait, tying the new strikes to maritime pressure as much as to the military exchange itself. The Strait of Hormuz remains the route at the center of the confrontation because both the US and Iran have used it as leverage against shipping.
The fighting did not begin on Tuesday. The US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on 28 February, and Iran answered by attacking Israel, US bases and allied states in the Gulf and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz to marine traffic. A Memorandum of Understanding to extend a ceasefire between Iran and the US was signed in June, then expired, and hostilities resumed after that agreement fell away.
Strikes near Sirik
Reports from Tuesday said a strike near Sirik in southern Iran killed two people and wounded several at a wedding party, while other reports said projectiles hit Chabahar and Konarak and an airport in Jiroft. Other reports said explosions were heard in Qeshm island and Bandar Abbas. For readers watching the region, that means the exchange was not limited to one military site; it spread across multiple named locations along Iran’s southern coast and interior.
Iranian news agencies said retaliatory missile and drone attacks on US bases and interests in the region had begun. That account clashes with the US account of why the strikes started, because Washington says the response followed attempted attacks in the Strait while Iranian outlets say retaliation had already started elsewhere.
Masoud Pezeshkian and Tehran
Masoud Pezeshkian was quoted by state media on Tuesday saying that “if the US returned to committing to the agreement, Iran would reciprocate.” Washington announced a fresh sanctions campaign on 24 August aimed at further isolating Tehran and expanding secondary sanctions against its allies, adding pressure to a dispute that now runs through force, shipping restrictions and sanctions at the same time.
What matters next is simple and immediate: whether Iran carries out the retaliation Trump warned about, and how far the Tuesday strikes reached inside Iran. The current account leaves those two points at the center of the fight, with the region already absorbing strikes at sea and on land.
