Tehran attacked American military installations in neighbouring states while Washington expanded its air campaign against Iranian coastal defences, missile facilities and strategic positions near the Strait of Hormuz.
DUBAI — Iran launched a new series of missile and drone attacks against United States military facilities across the Gulf as American forces carried out further strikes inside Iran, deepening a conflict that is threatening regional security and the flow of global energy supplies.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its latest operations targeted American military positions in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Regional authorities reported activating air-defence systems, while explosions and warning sirens were heard near areas hosting US forces. The full extent of the damage and casualties could not immediately be independently established.
The attacks came as the United States conducted two major waves of airstrikes in southern Iran. American operations reportedly targeted coastal defences, missile installations and military sites around Bandar Abbas and Greater Tunb Island, positions considered important to Iran’s ability to control access to the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command said the campaign was intended to weaken Iran’s capacity to threaten commercial shipping and American forces in the region. In recent days, CENTCOM has announced successive rounds of attacks against Iranian radar, drone and missile infrastructure, describing them as responses to assaults on vessels passing through the strait.
The latest exchanges have effectively dismantled a fragile ceasefire negotiated the previous month. Each side has accused the other of violating understandings intended to prevent further escalation, while continuing to present its own military operations as defensive and proportionate.
Tehran has described the confrontation as an existential struggle and insists that American bases in neighbouring countries are legitimate targets when they are used to support attacks on Iran. The Iranian leadership has also warned that regional states hosting US forces could face further retaliation, even as it attempts to distinguish between those governments and Washington.
For Gulf countries, that distinction offers little reassurance. Bahrain and Kuwait host important American military facilities, while Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are closely integrated into the United States’ regional security network. Missile and drone attacks near those installations risk drawing host nations more directly into the confrontation.
The strategic centre of the conflict remains the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas normally passes through the route, making any prolonged disruption a threat to the global economy.
Iran has sought to assert control over shipping in the strait, while the United States has renewed efforts to prevent Tehran from restricting maritime traffic. Washington has also intensified pressure on Iranian ports and oil exports, creating a dangerous combination of naval enforcement, airstrikes and attacks on commercial vessels.
Shipping companies have increasingly diverted or delayed tankers because of the danger. Insurance costs have risen sharply, and oil prices have climbed as traders assess the possibility of longer-lasting interruptions to Gulf exports. The consequences could extend far beyond the Middle East, raising transport, manufacturing and energy costs across Europe and Asia.
The American campaign has so far concentrated primarily on military infrastructure, particularly installations connected to Iran’s missiles, drones and coastal defences. President Donald Trump has nevertheless threatened to widen the list of targets if Tehran refuses to end its operations in the strait and return to negotiations.
Iran, in turn, has warned that strikes against its critical infrastructure could lead to attacks on additional regional facilities and other major maritime routes. Tehran has suggested that allied armed groups, including the Houthis in Yemen, could increase pressure around the Bab al-Mandab strait, another essential passage for global trade.
The intensifying campaign has raised concern over civilian casualties. Iranian authorities accused the United States of carrying out an attack near a children’s hospital in Ahvaz, forcing patients to be evacuated. Washington has not accepted Iran’s account, and the circumstances surrounding the reported incident remain contested.
Despite the escalation, limited signs of diplomacy have not disappeared entirely. Iran released an American citizen who had been detained since 2024, a move Trump described as a goodwill gesture. The release suggested that indirect communication channels remain open even as the two countries exchange strikes.
Mediators including Oman, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan have urged both governments to step back from further confrontation. Their efforts, however, face an increasingly difficult environment in which military action is moving faster than diplomacy.
Neither Washington nor Tehran appears to be seeking a conventional ground war. Yet both are attempting to demonstrate that they can impose unacceptable costs on the other without surrendering their strategic objectives.
That calculation carries enormous risks. Missiles can miss their intended targets, defensive systems can fail, and attacks on bases in third countries can trigger political or military responses that were never part of the original plan.
What began as a dispute over shipping, sanctions and Iran’s regional power has become a rapidly expanding confrontation involving military bases, strategic islands and some of the world’s most important energy infrastructure.
With every new wave of attacks, the distance between controlled escalation and an uncontrollable regional war is becoming dangerously narrow.
