Military exchanges between the United States and Iran stretched into a fourth consecutive night as President Donald Trump reinstated a naval blockade targeting Iranian ports and issued stark warnings that Iran’s civilian infrastructure could be next if the country refuses to negotiate.
The naval blockade, which restricts ships from traveling to and from Iranian ports, was first set in motion on Tuesday after President Trump announced the measure on Truth Social. The day before, Trump had declared that the United States would serve as the “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command, known as CENTCOM, confirmed it had resumed offensive strikes against Iran ahead of reimposing the blockade. In a statement shared on X, CENTCOM announced: “At 3 p.m. ET today, US Central Command forces began launching an additional round of strikes against Iran to continue degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” The command added that forces were also preparing “to resume the naval blockade against Iranian ports and coastal areas.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fired back with strikes of its own throughout the region. Video footage reviewed by CNN and verified through geolocation appeared to capture an Iranian drone hitting a warehouse that was already ablaze in an industrial zone near Mina Abdullah in Kuwait.
Early Wednesday local time, the IRGC claimed responsibility for striking what it described as a U.S. Army logistics and support center in Mina Abdullah, saying the facility was “set on fire and destroyed.” However, it remained unclear whether the burning structure shown in the footage had any connection to the U.S. military.
Kuwait’s fire service confirmed late Tuesday local time that crews had put out a fire “caused by a hostile Iranian aerial aggression,” according to the official Kuwait News Agency, though the report did not specify the fire’s exact location.
Iran’s military also asserted that it struck U.S. military assets at Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan. Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that Iranian attack drones targeted an area where F-18 fighter jets were stationed, along with an accommodation building and a large equipment hangar allegedly belonging to the U.S. Army. Notably, F-18 jets are typically deployed on aircraft carriers rather than at land bases in the Middle East, and U.S. media organizations were unable to independently confirm the claim.
On the diplomatic front, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi declared Tuesday that Tehran feels it has “no obligations” under a 14-point agreement reached with the United States the previous month. He argued that the heart of what he called the Islamabad memorandum of understanding was about ending the conflict entirely. “The core of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding concerned ending the war — an immediate and permanent cessation of the war and, in effect, of military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran — as well as on all other fronts, including Lebanon,” he said.
In an interview with Fox News, President Trump made clear that the military campaign would only grow more intense if Iran does not return to the negotiating table. “We’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them very hard the night after, and then next week it gets really bad for them, because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump said.
