TEHRAN, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — Iran and the United States traded strikes after the U.S. military attacked Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran, with Tehran saying it had begun a retaliatory response described as “crushing and shattering” blows against the United States.
The IRGC said Tuesday night that it had started its “regret-inducing” response to U.S. strikes earlier in the day.
In a statement published on its official outlet Sepah News, the IRGC said its air defense had shot down a “hostile” U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone, while its aerospace forces had launched ballistic missile strikes on U.S. bases and assets in the region.
The IRGC said its response came after U.S. strikes on southern Iranian provinces earlier in the day.
The semi-official Fars news agency, citing local officials, reported that at least four people, including a child and a woman, were killed and more than 50 others were wounded in a U.S. strike on a wedding ceremony in Sirik County, Hormozgan Province. Iranian state media later reported that a U.S. missile attack on three locations in Khuzestan Province killed seven people and injured eight others, bringing the reported death toll from the strikes to at least 11.
Several explosions were heard on Tuesday evening in southern Iran after the U.S. Central Command announced strikes on IRGC targets.
Iranian media reported explosions in parts of Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Kerman, and Bushehr provinces, including Konarak and areas near Qeshm Island, though the locations and causes remained unclear.
The IRGC said the U.S. strikes targeted facilities including a fish powder factory on Qeshm Island, a fishing pier and a port authority tower in Sirik. IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi warned that a “harsh punishment” awaited the “aggressors.”
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the country’s main military command, said the armed forces would respond to U.S. “air aggression.”
In a post on social media platform X, the U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces had begun strikes on IRGC targets, adding that “the strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”
Iranian media reported that the IRGC had launched missile and drone attacks against U.S. assets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq’s Erbil. Iran said it had also targeted U.S. military sites in the United Arab Emirates.
The Jordanian Armed Forces said its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered its airspace from Iran, with no casualties reported.
The General Command of the Bahrain Defense Force said Wednesday that it had intercepted and destroyed several Iranian aerial attacks, adding that all weapons and units remained at high levels of readiness.
In Iraq, U.S.-led coalition forces intercepted 10 drones over Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, in the early hours of Wednesday, according to the regional Directorate General of Counter-Terrorism, a security agency in the Kurdistan region.
