The United States bombed a missile launcher on Iran's Qeshm Island on Thursday night, after Iranian forces fired on a foreign military aircraft flying in Iran's own airspace. Asked on X whether the United States was behind two weeks of reported attacks on Iranian coastal towns and naval bases, Axios reporter Barak Ravid replied: "Self defense strikes on launchers".
Ravid confirmed that a range of strikes across Iran recently were launched by the USA, calling them "defensive strikes". Iran had been reporting strikes along their coastline over the last few weeks, which the USA has not yet claimed. Ravid has since deleted the reply, and has not said why.
On Thursday night, local reports and footage also showed four missiles hitting the Iranian navy's base at Jask, about 200 kilometres east along the coast, though no one has said who fired them.
From early evening, Iranian forces launched surface-to-air missiles from Qeshm at an aircraft that had flown above the island, which is Iranian airspace, and the Revolutionary Guards said through the Tasnim news agency that they had fired on a fighter jet near Qeshm and forced it to withdraw.
Explosions followed on the island, and the launcher used against the aircraft was struck. Iran's IRNA agency later described further blasts heard near Qeshm as warning shots fired at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The aircraft was over Iranian territory, Iran fired on it there, and the United States then bombed Iranian soil. The "self defense" idea comes from Ravid, who named gave no source in his reply, and whose earlier Iran reporting relayed US claims that turned out to be false, and whom Axios defended at the time by saying he reflects what the US president is thinking.
The strikes came hours after Trump met the head of Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, along with Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, to go over military options against Iran. Trump has said the United States plans to strike Iran after next week's elections, at least ten US military cargo planes landed in Israel in the past day, and Senator Chris Murphy, who was briefed on the plans, called them "insane".
This news is developing, more updates will follow.
