US Launches Strikes on 140 Targets in Iran After Ship Attack in Hormuz
WASHINGTON — Hours after an Iranian strike set a container ship ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz and forced its crew to abandon ship, the United States early Sunday launched a sweeping barrage of air and missile strikes across Iran, U.S. Central Command said.
Iran appeared to answer with salvos aimed at Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, widening a fast-moving confrontation across the Gulf.
The Strait of Hormuz has become the central sticking point in attempts to restart U.S.-Iran talks on a permanent end to the war that began on Feb. 28.
Before the conflict, roughly 20% of the world’s traded oil and natural gas flowed through the choke point. Iran’s wartime grip on the passage ignited a global energy shock, though crude has since retreated sharply from peaks near $120 a barrel.
Central Command said U.S. forces hit about 140 targets inside Iran—substantially more than in the prior two rounds of strikes.
Targets included missile and drone launch sites, ammunition stockpiles, communications nodes, and other military infrastructure, according to the command.
The operation aimed to “degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial vessels freely transiting the strait,” Central Command said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote online: “Iran made a poor choice. Now they pay.”
The renewed exchange followed President Donald Trump’s declaration days earlier that the interim deal meant to pause the war was effectively “over.”
The United Arab Emirates on Sunday warned residents to brace for incoming missiles and drones, and explosions were reported in neighboring Qatar.
A missile alert sounded in Qatar shortly after the blasts, and the Qatari military said it had intercepted the incoming Iranian fire. Missile alerts were also activated in Bahrain.
In the Hormuz attack, a Cyprus-flagged container ship sustained “significant engine-room damage” after being struck by Iran, and one civilian crew member remained missing, U.S. Central Command said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center reported the vessel was sailing close to Oman’s coast along a corridor commonly used to skirt Iranian territorial waters.
The ship’s crew abandoned the burning vessel, the center said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said multiple ships disregarded warnings and orders to alter course and follow an approved lane.
It said one vessel was hit by a warning shot and compelled to stop.
Tehran said the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed “until further notice” and cautioned it could strike additional regional bases if Iran faced more attacks.
Iranian state media said U.S. strikes hit Bandar Abbas, Sirik, and other locations lining the Strait of Hormuz.
The spike in violence came after the foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met Saturday to discuss the waterway, following days of Iranian attacks on commercial shipping and U.S. reprisals.
Oman said both sides agreed to keep talking about the strait at technical and political levels.
Iran, however, stopped short of the public pledge Washington sought to fully reopen the passage to international traffic.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, also vowed to avenge the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
“Such revenge is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” he said in his first public remarks since the funeral.
U.S. officials have attributed renewed Iranian attacks to a hardline faction intent on wrecking the ceasefire, while Tehran has maintained its leadership is unified under the new supreme leader.
Earlier U.S. strikes last week killed at least 17 people and wounded 115 others, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.
