The response has arrived on time. After Iran attacked US bases in Jordan with ballistic missiles on Tuesday, Washington announced a day later the retaliation, in the form of bombings. The operation was launched from eight in the evening, Washington time (six in Mexico and two in the morning in mainland Spain). Two hours later, the army declared victory by announcing that it had successfully completed an “intense wave of attacks” against the Islamic Republic.
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The United States has struck, according to the Central Command (Centcom) on its X account, dozens of targets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, “including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense posts, and maritime capabilities.”
“The attacks aimed to further reduce the threats that Iran and its proxy forces pose to US troops, commercial maritime transport, and neighboring Gulf countries,” added Centcom, which describes this operation as a response to Tehran’s attacks on its bases in the Middle East.
U.S. forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8 p.m. ET today. The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 30, 2026
After the US bombings, the Jordanian army reported intercepting five missiles launched against its territory and attributed the attack to the Islamic Republic. “Early Thursday, five missiles from Iran that attacked the Kingdom’s territories were detected, intercepted, and shot down according to defensive plans prepared for this purpose,” the Armed Forces said in a statement. Amman assured that the offensive failed and caused no casualties.
Meanwhile, Iranian media reported explosions near the Jordanian airbase of Mawfaq al Sultan, a target of previous attacks for hosting US aircraft. Neither Tehran nor the Revolutionary Guard immediately claimed responsibility for this new action.
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News agencies reported late Wednesday explosions heard in southern Iranian towns such as Bushehr and Bandar Abbas. The sirens mark the return to the scene of open war that was already experienced this month, when the end of the ceasefire gave way to 13 days of uninterrupted attacks.
US President Donald Trump said last weekend that he wanted to give dialogue a chance and ordered the attacks to be frozen. But the missiles unexpectedly launched by Iran on Tuesday seem to have broken that possibility. Trump himself announced a few hours earlier what was about to happen. “We’re going to hit them hard. They’re going to get a beating,” he said in an interview on Fox News channel.
The operation is even more dangerous than when the attacks between Washington and Tehran occurred earlier this month. Because it happens at a time when other regional actors are intervening in the hostilities, opening the prospect of a total war that sets the Middle East on fire. First were the Houthis, the Yemeni militia backed by Iran, which intervened last week with attacks on Saudi oil tankers, an operation that has been repeated in subsequent days.
The conflict took a further step this Wednesday, with the joint intervention of the United States and its Saudi ally on Iraqi soil against pro-Iranian militias. A joint attack by Washington and Riyadh ended with 20 dead and 32 injured among the pro-Iranian armed groups, according to a statement from the organization that groups them, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). This was the first time in the five months of the Iran war that Saudi Arabia, the great Sunni power of the Middle East, carried out an operation with the US army.
The resulting cocktail of all these factors is not only that the prospects for a negotiated exit are fading, but that the intervention of new armies and paramilitary militias may cause the conflict to spread with unpredictable consequences.
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