The US and Iran ceasefire faced a serious new test this week after American forces struck more than 80 targets inside Iran, in what a US official described as the largest US retaliatory response since the ceasefire took hold, following attacks on three commercial tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
CENTCOM said its forces hit Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait, describing the operation as aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to keep attacking international shipping.
The tankers hit were the Marshall Islands-flagged M/T Al Rekayyat, the Saudi-flagged M/T Wedyan, and the Liberian-flagged M/T Cyprus Prosperity, CENTCOM said. A US official told NBC News the American response was carried out with Air Force jets and Navy tactical aircraft targeting air defenses, surface-to-air missile sites, drone launch sites, and port facilities, and video verified by the network showed multiple explosions at a port in Bandar Abbas, while Iranian state TV reported explosions on Qeshm Island and in the mainland city of Sirik, both frequent targets throughout the broader Iran war.
The escalation came just hours after Washington pulled a key economic concession from the ceasefire deal. The Treasury Department revoked a license that had authorized Iran to sell oil and petrochemicals, with a US official saying Iran’s actions in the strait were “wholly unacceptable” and would be met with consequences, while stressing that the memorandum of understanding underlying the ceasefire is “entirely performance-based.” Saudi Arabia separately condemned the strike on its tanker, the Wedyan, calling it “an assault on the security and safety of international navigation.”
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Iran had not announced a retaliatory response to this specific round as of Tuesday evening, but the pattern from the prior escalation is instructive. After US strikes on June 26, Iran’s IRGC claimed retaliatory attacks on Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base and Bahrain’s Port Salman within about a day, damaging a residential building in Bahrain and prompting both governments to formally condemn Tehran. CENTCOM said at the time that Iran had been “given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to.”
Independent verification of damage claims from either side has proven difficult throughout the conflict: a Washington Post investigation in May, using satellite imagery, found strikes had damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures across 15 mostly US-operated Gulf sites since the war began, a toll considerably larger than CENTCOM’s real-time public statements have typically conveyed.
Markets reacted immediately to Tuesday’s exchange. Brent crude rose about 2.5% to $73.83 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate climbed a similar amount, while the 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.51%, reflecting renewed inflation concern tied to the risk of a wider Hormuz disruption.
