Iran fires retaliatory strikes following US attacks on Larak island in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran said on Monday that it has launched strikes targeting US military positions in Jordan in retaliation for Washington’s first strikes on its territory in a month, marking a fresh flare-up in the six-month war.

Tehran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps said they struck two US military air bases with ballistic missiles in Washington-allied Jordan, causing "heavy damage." The Jordanian army, shortly after Iran’s announcement, said that it had intercepted eight missiles, without stating their origin.

The strikes came after the United States revealed on Sunday that it had attacked Iranian rocket launchers on a Larak, a small island in the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington said its attacks were aimed at preventing Iran from launching more sea mines into the strait, days after it announced it had completed clearing explosives from the strategic waterway.

"US forces took limited, precise action against IRGC (Iran's Revolutionary Guards') minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz," the US Central Command wrote in a post on X.

The Guards said the US strikes resulted in "casualties" and that their subsequent attack on Jordan was "in response to the US-Zionist aerial aggression."

The exchange of fire came shortly after the US-Iran war hit the six-month mark, and at a time when hostilities had been subsiding.

In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump and his administration prioritised "economic warfare" over military strikes on Iran amid intense domestic and international pressure to end the military campaign, initially slated to be short-lived, but which has extended to months with no end in near sight.

Tehran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic sea lane through which 20% of the world's oil passed before the United States and Israel launched the war’s opening salvo on 28 February.