US and Iran Trade Strikes as Fighting Resumes in Gulf

U.S. Central Command launched a wave of strikes against Iran on Sept. 1, and President Donald Trump said forces are “prepared to do another one” as Iran launched retaliatory attacks Sept. 2.

Fighting resumed Aug. 30, as CENTCOM officials announced strikes on “minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz.” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been using land-based launchers to lob floating mines into the Strait.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Sept. 2, Trump said he ended the roughly monthlong pause in hostilities because of sea mines.

“They were trying to rebuild their radar systems and a missile system and … to build a rocket that drops mines,” Trump said at a White House event. “They were building it, it was almost finished, so we took it out. We saw that they were building it, we see everything that they’re doing.”

Iranian forces countered with ballistic missile attacks on U.S. forces in Jordan and on civilian ships transiting the Strait. A number of U.S. Air Force personnel and assets are stationed at the base in Jordan that has previously come under attack.

On Sept. 1, CENTCOM announced additional strikes on IRGC targets in retaliation for “attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.” The command indicated its targets included “air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites.”

Trump called the U.S. strikes “a very heavy attack” that “took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz: some defensive, some offensive.”

Iranian state media outlets alleged the strikes also hit a wedding party in a coastal town, but those claims remain unconfirmed.

Iranian forces launched their latest retaliatory strikes Sept. 2. Officials and media outlets in the Middle East reported attempted strikes in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Iraq. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry also said Iran targeted a Saudi tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and killed members of its crew.

As of 4 p.m. Eastern time and 11 p.m. in much of the Middle East, CENTCOM had not announced additional strikes. Trump told reporters that the U.S. is “prepared to do another one anytime we want.”

CENTCOM continues to enforce a blockade of Iranian ships and ports and said in a Sept. 2 social media post that it has redirected 86 commercial vessels, disabled three, and boarded two as part of the blockade.