At the same time, US President Donald Trump said Iran has allowed an American who was “wrongfully detained” under the Biden administration in 2024 to leave the country.
“She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition. The United States of America appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz. Military operations are also keeping ships from transiting the vital artery, which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war.
Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, closed at a one-month high at US$84.95 a barrel on Wednesday.
US Central Command said the military had attacked coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Iran’s Greater Tunb Island starting around 1000 GMT, and had completed the wave of strikes within around 90 minutes.
Nine hours later, Central Command reported a second wave of strikes.
“The strikes are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway vital to global commerce. The US military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction,” Central Command said on X.
Three US officials told Reuters that US strikes aimed at forcing open the strait are also targeting Iranian military capabilities the US would want to destroy before executing more complex operations.
The US military also said it disabled an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward Iran’s Kharg Island after it ignored multiple warnings, firing Hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack.
Since resuming a naval blockade against Iran on Tuesday, the US has redirected two ships and disabled another, the military said.
Following the latest round of strikes, Iran’s Mehr news agency said four locations around the city of Ahvaz came under attack, just inland from the northern end of the Persian Gulf, as did Bandar Abbas, Iran’s principal port city on the Strait of Hormuz. In neither case were casualties reported, Mehr said.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency said explosions were heard in Konarak city, at the southern end of Iran on the Gulf of Oman.
US projectiles also hit near Sirik and Qeshm in southern Iran, according to Iran’s semi-official media.
Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, however, reported that the US attacks struck near a hospital in Ahvaz that houses a pediatric cancer centre, forcing the temporary evacuation of the hospital. Families have come out to the streets around the hospital to care for their children, IRIB said.
After the first wave, which Iran said hit a location on its Hengam Island in the strait, Tehran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf issued a statement declaring that Iranian security depended on maintaining what he called “Iranian arrangements” in the strait.
“We are in an essential and existential war with America,” Ghalibaf said.
The war has killed thousands of people and displaced millions, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, where conflict restarted between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
In July alone, US attacks have killed 35 people, Tasnim reported, citing a health ministry official.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday it had struck US military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
Kuwait said its armed forces intercepted four missiles and 21 drones from Iran on Wednesday, but that no injuries or material damage were reported. (Reuters)
