US strikes on Iran have killed at least 11 people, including a four-year-old boy at a wedding, according to Iranian state media. The attacks, described as broader and more intense than previous ones, also injured more than 50 people when shrapnel hit a home where a wedding was taking place in Hormozgan province.
Wedding attack in Sirik
Iran’s Fars news agency reported that the boy was killed in a series of US strikes near the southern port city of Sirik. The Iranian Red Crescent said more than 50 people were injured when shrapnel hit the home. The US has not yet commented on the reports.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the US military had “turned the wedding celebration of a young and respectable Sunni couple into a mourning by bombing a residential house in Sirik and reducing it to dust and blood”, according to a statement carried by state media. “In this malicious attack, nearly 70 innocent people were hit, and four of them, including a child, were martyred.”
IRGC claims strikes on US bases
The IRGC said it responded with strikes on US military bases in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq’s Erbil. It claimed a “number” of “enemy” forces were killed and drones destroyed in a missile and drone attack on Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait, which is known to host some US troops. Neither the American nor Kuwaiti military has confirmed this.
Kuwait said it came under missile fire and drone attacks this morning, with a fire breaking out at a residential complex in the capital. The fire was brought under control, and no casualties were reported. “Kuwaiti air defences are currently responding to hostile missile and drone attacks,” the Kuwaiti army said on X, urging citizens to follow safety instructions.
Trump warns of more attacks
Donald Trump warned that if Iran retaliated, “they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level”. “But it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social app last night.
In a subsequent post overnight, he said he was “not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table” and that he “couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement”. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” he added.
In a call with Fox News, Trump reportedly reiterated that Iran would be “totally wiped out” if it launches retaliatory strikes. “This is a very big hit today. If it goes a third time, they’re going to be totally wiped out as a country,” Fox News quoted the US president as saying.
Other developments
IRGC spokesperson Sardar Mohebi said in a post on X that the US will face “severe punishment” and that it “will regret its new attacks”.
Jordan’s army said 10 out of 13 Iranian ballistic missiles were intercepted and the other three fell in remote areas. The IRGC had claimed it killed “a large number of US forces” and destroyed “several installations and enemy attack helicopters” in a ballistic attack on US Marines’ barracks at Camp Titin, near Aqaba. Reuters and Al Jazeera have both reported, citing US sources, that there were no injuries or damage to the barracks.
This phase of fighting began when the US military said it had struck rocket launchers on Larak Island in the strait of Hormuz on Sunday, in its first strikes on Iran since July, after detecting that the Iranians were planning to deploy fresh mines in the critical waterway. Tehran responded by launching missiles at US sites in Jordan, which were intercepted, and the UAE, which said it had stopped an Iranian drone over its territorial waters.
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said that if the US returns to a peace deal aimed at ending months of hostilities, Iran “will immediately take reciprocal action”, according to the Iranian presidency’s website. He also thanked Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s stance on the conflict. Putin and Pezeshkian held talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, attended by over a dozen leaders including China’s Xi Jinping and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
