U.S. unleashes ‘heavy wave’ of strikes; Iran vows to ‘punish the aggressor today’

Iran vowed to “punish” the United States on Thursday after the American military said it had completed a “heavy wave of strikes” overnight, the latest retaliation for an attack by Tehran on U.S. forces in the Middle East. The renewed fighting shattered a brief period of calm that had seen the two sides engage with a push to revive diplomatic efforts and stave off dramatic new escalation. But President Donald Trump said the U.S. would hit the Islamic Republic hard after its attack on a base in Jordan. And the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) signaled the flare-up would not end there, warning early Thursday that “the aggressor will be punished today” following the U.S. strikes. There were also signs that the war was again expanding and drawing in new countries, raising the stakes for the region and the global economy. After Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. in striking Iran-backed militants, Egypt confirmed Thursday that a drone ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the port of Damietta. It was not immediately clear who was behind the drone strike — on a U.S.-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker — but an attack there by Iran would mark a significant new expansion of the conflict to a key U.S. ally and mediator. It would also highlight the broader risk to the world’s energy supplies from the difficulty in resolving the conflict. Asked if it was Iran during an Oval Office event on Wednesday, Trump said he had been briefed on the incident and that “it’s a little more of the same.” “It’s going to be straightening out,” he added, without expanding on what exactly he meant. “In the meantime, we’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them.” Trump also vowed on Wednesday to “beat the f---ing s--- out of” Iran after its Tuesday attack on American forces, according to Fox News, which cited a phone call with the president. Hours later U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said in a post on X it had completed a “heavy wave of strikes against Iran” in response to what it had previously described as an “attempted surprise attack” on American forces. CENTCOM said dozens of targets belonging to the Revolutionary Guard Corps were struck over two hours, including “military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities.” Strikes were reported in cities across Iran. A toddler was among three people killed on the island of Qeshm, in the Strait of Hormuz, the state-owned IRIB news agency reported. The key waterway has become the focal point of the conflict and the main sticking point in peace talks. Some 20% of the world’s oil passed through the key trade route prior to the war, but shipping through Hormuz and along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea has been slowed by attacks as the U.S. struggles to break Tehran’s stranglehold. Mediators, and Trump, had expressed some optimism about diplomatic efforts after the interim deal between the two sides collapsed into weeks of tit-for-tat strikes. But the new flare-up saw oil prices surge again, with the international benchmark Brent crude oil hovering around $90 a barrel early Thursday.