President Donald Trump said Iran will have to “pay the price” after it responded to U.S. strikes with a wave of attacks targeting U.S. assets across the Middle East overnight, adding to a fresh cycle of violence that threatens to upend the increasingly shaky ceasefire between the two countries.
Trump appeared to threaten further military action against Iran in a post on social media Wednesday morning. “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!” he said.
Hours earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S. strikes and said it had “severely hit U.S. bases and assets in the region that were the source of these aggressions.”
Persian Gulf states have a “legal and moral responsibility” to prevent their territory being used by the United States and Israel for further attacks, the ministry said in a statement, adding that Iran would “not hesitate to exercise its inherent right to defend itself.”
The strikes targeted 21 sites at U.S. bases across the region, Iranian semiofficial media outlet Tasnim reported, including those operated by the U.S. Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait and a U.S. air base in Jordan.
U.S. Central Command did not immediately confirm the attacks, but Kuwait’s military reported intercepting aerial attacks and Jordan’s armed forces said they intercepted five missiles from Iran. Bahrain’s military also said it had intercepted an unspecified number of Iranian missiles and drones. No deaths were reported.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the continued Iranian attacks constitute “a dangerous overreach that endangers the lives of civilians and the safety of vital and residential facilities.”
The tit-for-tat strikes mark the latest bout of fighting in the Middle East, where ceasefire deals between the U.S. and Iran and between Israel and Lebanon appear increasingly tenuous, threatening to tip the region back into an all-out war.
On Tuesday, Centcom said it had completed “self-defense strikes” at Trump’s direction following the downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter on Monday.
The helicopter was shot down while patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, and two Army aviators were rescued by naval sea drone, marking the first rescue of its kind, U.S. officials said.
Trump said the U.S. “must, of necessity, respond to this attack” in a post on Truth Social following the loss of the helicopter. He also shared a short clip from “The West Wing” in which a fictional president, played by Martin Sheen, argues about proportionate responses with aides.
Centcom said in its statement Tuesday the U.S. strikes, which targeted Iranian air defense, ground control and radar sites, were a “proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.”
Despite intense clashes in recent days — including the first direct attacks between Israel and Iran since the declaration of a ceasefire in April — Trump had insisted the U.S. and Iran remain close to securing a peace deal.
“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape or form nuclear weapons … and then the strait will open up right away,” he said early Tuesday after attending an NBA game in New York.
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