Iran targets military bases as US launches strikes on northern Iran

Tehran has launched fresh attacks on U.S. military bases in neighboring Gulf states, hitting targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, as a sixth day of renewed hostilities strained their preliminary deal to end the war.

Meanwhile, the United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic. Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded more than 300 others. Strikes also reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time of this latest round of violence.

The US military said it inflicted a six-hour wave of strikes in multiple locations to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent mariners” in the Strait of Hormuz.

On July 16, U.S. forces successfully destroyed the Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port surveillance tower, part of a maritime surveillance network along Iran’s Gulf of Oman coastline used for decades by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to track and target commercial… pic.twitter.com/CgBNvgOFf9

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 17, 2026

The latest exchanges came after US President Donald Trump warned Iran it had “better behave” or face further military action should Iran not return to negotiations.

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told state media Tehran had “no reason” to abide by any agreement that did not benefit the country. He added that Iran’s national security depended on maintaining what he described as “Iranian arrangements” in the Strait of Hormuz.