Iran and the United States have traded strikes in recent days, reigniting a war that largely was in a stalemate for a month and pumping new fears of a wider, regional war.
The U.S. on Tuesday launched strikes at Iranian targets that the government said were military sites, then Iran on Wednesday launched strikes against allied countries after claiming the U.S. hit a wedding.
Iran claimed the U.S. committed “war crimes,” while U.S. Central Command told BBC that it was “looking into” the Iranian media report, but said the U.S. military “never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC.”
The IRGC has refused to admit to killing protesters in Iran, blaming the fatalities on bad actors, terrorists and the United States.
Iran fired missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted, but other strikes and drone launches were reported by U.S. allies Kuwait and Bahrain. Neither country reported any casualties.
Iran’s newly appointed head of its Supreme National Security Council said online that the world will soon see the “new strategy on the battlefield, in diplomacy, and in confronting the economic blockade” and said the new strategy will “shatter your foundations.”
It comes as President Donald Trump changes his strategy against Iran after neither side could confidently say there was a truce or an agreement struck.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will continue to feel the “squeeze” from the United States until leaders abandon their ambitions of obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Trump confirmed the U.S. began striking Iran on Tuesday, saying if Iran retaliated, the U.S. would hit back “at a much harder and higher level.”
“It will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.
The strikes were a change-up in strategy for the administration, which had in recent weeks tried to increase its economic sanctions on Iran to squeeze the country into reducing its presence in the Strait of Hormuz and to end the war.
He threatened Iran with an economic “D-Day” and called on allied countries to cut Iran off financially.
With unhappy voters heading to the polls, some Republicans are concerned that Trump’s war will hurt their chances of maintaining control of Congress.
They’re worried that the ongoing war, which has made gas prices rise across the country, could change the way voters see the party, but Trump has stated multiple times he’s not worried about trying to end the war. On Tuesday, he shared online that he wasn’t trying to force Iran to the bargaining table.
“I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” he wrote. “They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
Trump was later asked in the Oval Office Wednesday about Iranians fighting and whether he’d send the CIA to arm Iranians and allow them to push back against the regime.
“I wouldn’t want to say that,” he said. “I’d love to tell you that, but it wouldn’t be abrupt to say. But, I ... mean, I understand their plight.”
Trump reiterated that the U.S. was controlling the Strait of Hormuz, noting that “every once in a while” Iran shoots a drone but maintained the U.S. has control of the waterway.
He also said he doesn’t think the war will go on for “very much longer.”
The resumption in fighting has sparked concern among global experts that the war would expand into a regional or larger conflict.
Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, told The Associated Press that at one point, either the U.S. or Iran might think they need to escalate the attacks in order to break the cycle the two countries have been engaged in since late February.
“So that could bring the two sides to a point that they have been trying to avoid until now, which is a full-scale war,” he said.