Tehran: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Monday it had launched a combined missile and drone strike on US air bases in Jordan in retaliation for the US-Israeli aerial attacks on Iran’s Larak Island Sunday night.
The Iranian military targeted “technical and maintenance infrastructure,” as well as areas where “enemy fighter jets” were stationed at the King Hussein and Al-Azraq US bases in Jordan, inflicting heavy damage, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, citing an IRGC statement.
“Aggression and crimes will not solve the enemy’s desperation in attempting to weaken the Islamic Republic’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, and every attack will be met with even more devastating responses,” the statement said.
The reported attack followed a US strike on two IRGC rocket launchers on Larak Island, an Iranian island positioned near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
US forces Sunday struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, US Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins said, marking the first known US strike against Iran since late July.
“Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into Strait of Hormuz,” Hawkins said in a statement, adding that the US military was “monitoring the area closely and remains prepared to protect the free flow of commerce” through the strategic waterway.
Larak Island is a small Iranian island located off the coast of Bandar Abbas, east of Qeshm Island and south of Hormuz Island.
IRGC said multiple military personnel and civilians were killed or wounded Sunday night in a “US-Israeli” attack on Iran’s southern Larak Island in Hormozgan province, reports Xinhua news agency.
In a statement published by its official news outlet, Sepah News, the IRGC vowed that the attack would be met with “punishment for the aggressor.”
Citing unofficial reports, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said that at least two people were killed and two others injured in what it described as a US “drone attack” on the island.