Iranian media report that a couple and their two-year-old child were killed in the latest US attacks on Qeshm island.
The United States has launched a “heavy wave” of attacks against Iran after a five-night pause in strikes, following Iranian missile attacks on US forces a day earlier.
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said it had “successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran” as of 10pm ET on Wednesday (02:00 GMT on Thursday). It said the attacks were in response to Iranian strikes on US forces stationed at a US base in Jordan a day earlier.
Iranian media reported at least three civilians were killed in the latest US strikes.
Hours later, Jordan and Kuwait reported Iranian attacks on their territory.
CENTCOM claimed its strikes hit dozens of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets, according to a statement posted on X, including “military command centres, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defence sites, and maritime capabilities”.
The attacks came hours after US President Donald Trump promised to hit Iran “very hard”.
Reporting on the casualties from the US attacks, Iranian media said that a couple and their two-year-old child were killed when the residential building they were in was struck on Qeshm island – the biggest island in the Gulf.
Bombings were also reported in the southwestern cities of Ahvaz and Abadan. The semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that power outages occurred in Ahvaz as a result of the strikes. The city is located in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province.
A deputy security minister in Khuzestan also told Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB that US forces targeted “some locations in Abadan”.
Attacks were also reported in the southern province of Bushehr, as well as the cities of Kazerun and Farashband in the southwestern Fars province.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas said these latest strikes are “concentrated in Iran’s southern provinces, particularly those along the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz”, similar to the US attacks during a recent 13-day campaign.
The US had paused its attacks on Iran on Friday after nearly two weeks of continuous nightly strikes.
The IRGC has said that as long as Washington’s threats continue, Tehran’s resistance will also continue.
Iran responded on Thursday by targeting a US airbase and command headquarters in Jordan. Amman has not reported any casualties but said that it intercepted five missiles launched by Iran.
According to an official spokesperson for the Jordanian Armed Forces, military radar detected the incoming missiles before air defence units successfully engaged and downed all five targets.
Soon after, Kuwait’s defence ministry spokesperson said on X that an Iranian strike hit a building belonging to a Chinese company in the north of the country, killing a worker and inflicting significant damage.
Escalation options
Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East analyst with RANE network, a risk intelligence ompany, says the US has two likely escalation options.
“The first is the repeat of what America was doing prior to last Friday, which is focusing on targets and infrastructure related to Iran’s blockade of Hormuz,” he said.
“Or it could be an escalation towards the bridges and power plant strategy that President Trump has repeatedly threatened over and over again.”
The US is eager to end Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large percentage of global oil shipping passes.
Earlier, Iran rejected an Omani proposal on co-managing shipping routes through the strait.
The US Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Wednesday on two Iranian firms it said are integral to an IRGC-backed “scheme” that forces commercial vessels to buy insurance to transit Hormuz.
“The United States will not allow Iran to hold global commerce hostage or use international shipping to finance the IRGC’s terrorism, aggression, and repression,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X.
CENTCOM claimed the latest strikes aimed to “further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf nations”.
Former Pentagon official David Des Roches told Al Jazeera that the latest US strikes were “not a very overwhelming attack”, adding that Trump is perhaps, “trying to keep things proportionate, or to keep things open for diplomacy”.