President Donald Trump has unleashed a foul-mouthed outburst threatening to "beat the f***ing sh** out of Iran" after attacks on US bases throughout the Middle East. Responding angrily to the latest missile firings by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), he declared: “We're going to beat the f***ing sh** out of them. We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”
Iranian Missile Attack on US Base in Jordan
Tehran’s elite IRGC claimed they had targeted a US base in Jordan with ballistic missiles, but the US said the weapons were all shot down. The assault happened shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the US President in Washington on Tuesday. On Wednesday, US Centcom said the attack originated from Iran, but all missiles were intercepted.
Centcom stated: “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.”
US-Saudi Airstrikes in Iraq
In a separate flare-up, a joint US-Saudi attack launched waves of airstrikes across seven provinces of Iraq in an effort to hit pro-Iranian militia. Around 20 fighters were killed and 32 were wounded in the attack as the Iran war looks set to continue to expand across the region. The US military confirmed that the attack was in response to dozens of attacks by pro-Iranian fighters in Iraq in recent days.
In a statement, Centcom said the US and Saudi forces struck “multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites” in eastern Iraq on Tuesday, retaliating against more than 30 drone attacks in the past three days by “Iran-aligned terrorists.”
All of those killed in the joint US-Saudi attack were thought to have been in the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, which was formed in 2014. Many of its main forces that belong to the Shia faction trace their origins to the insurgency against the UK and US forces. They went on to battle the Sunni Islamic State terror group in Iraq and have been mobilised by Tehran to act on its behalf against the US.
Gaza Casualties
According to Gaza health officials, two Palestinians have been killed and 29 others injured in Gaza over the past 24 hours. One of the fatalities was a new death, while the other succumbed to earlier wounds. Additional victims remain trapped under debris or lie dead on roads with Palestinian Civil Defence crews unable to reach them, the ministry said in a statement.
Since the so-called Gaza “ceasefire”, the Health Ministry has recorded 1,209 deaths and 3,943 injuries, alongside 803 bodies retrieved from the rubble. The toll since the outbreak of the war in October 2023 now stands at 73,335 killed and 174,052 wounded. The latest wars across the Middle East were sparked by the 2022 October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. As Israeli retaliatory attacks got underway on Gaza, Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon attacked and this drew Iran into the conflict.
