The strikes follow attacks against commercial shipping and service members.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israeli strikes targeting military, government and infrastructure sites.
Delegations from the U.S. and Iran entered negotiations in June aimed at a war-ending deal based on a memorandum of understanding signed by both countries.
The U.S. and Iran have nonetheless continued to exchange strikes, with the strategic Strait of Hormuz as the primary flashpoint.
Iranian state media said Iran is now striking back after the U.S. launched strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets on Tuesday.
Iranian state media Tasnim news claimed an American MQ9 drone was shot down by a new Iranian air defense system in the Khomein area.
President Donald Trump confirmed that the U.S. is currently striking Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz, posting on social media that these strikes are "retaliation" to Iran’s "failed attempt at adding sea mines" to the strait and because of its strikes on a U.S. military base in Jordan over the weekend.
"The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, which currently has no mines (They have been completely removed or detonated!), and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump said on his social media platform on Tuesday.
On Sunday, a U.S. official said the U.S. struck Iranian rocket launch sites, claiming the IRGC had been preparing rockets armed with sea mines-- an attack that prompted Iran to respond with strikes in Jordan and the UAE.
In his post Tuesday, Trump then issued a warning to Iran, saying it will be "hit again at a much harder and higher level" if it retaliates after Tuesday's strike.
However, Trump clarified that a U.S. response to Iran’s retaliation will "not be the biggest attack of them all," saying a strike of that magnitude is "waiting in the wings" and would result in "very little" being left in the country of Iran.
"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" he said.
Shortly after the U.S. confirmed it launched strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets, IRGC spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari threatened a response is on the way.
"Gifts are on the way. We will no longer exercise restraint regarding Bahrain and Kuwait," Zolfaghari said in a post on X.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that the U.S.'s naval blockade against Iran amounts to a military act and warned that Iran would respond militarily if the U.S. intensifies its blockade, in a a video statement on Iranian state media Tuesday.
If the United States' "will is that we do not export oil" from the Gulf, "no one will be able to export oil," Ghalibaf said.
Ghalibaf said Iranian forces are resisting the U.S. effort to get ships across the Strait of Hormuz. While Ghalibaf acknowledged that “the enemy managed to get some ships” through Hormuz, he stressed that Iranian forces remain “in complete control of the strait and will not allow it to be opened."
He also said the U.S. is giving ships "false guarantees" about its ability to cross a southern route in Hormuz, adding that ships that try to do so are being targeted.
"America wants to use the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz in violation of the Memorandum of Understanding, and we will not allow it," he said.
