The Strait of Hormuz became a battlefield on Saturday night. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles and drones at US military installations in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar — the most geographically wide strike package Iran has ever publicly claimed — after American forces conducted fresh airstrikes on Iranian territory. CENTCOM confirmed it had hit approximately 14 targets, saying the strikes were intended to hold Iranian forces accountable for attacking a Cyprus-flagged container ship on the critical waterway. The IRGC claimed specific, significant damage.

It said a radar site in Kuwait was destroyed, along with a fighter aircraft maintenance centre and a command-and-control hub at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar — the largest American air base in the Middle East. It also claimed to have struck logistical support centres and refuelling platforms for US aircraft carriers at the port of Duqm in Oman, a facility that Washington has quietly expanded in recent years. The strikes are being read in Tehran as a direct consequence of Washington's failure to honour a June agreement. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led the nuclear-adjacent negotiations alongside Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, posted a screenshot of the memorandum of understanding on X, highlighting the clause that committed Iran to ensuring safe passage of commercial vessels through Hormuz.

"The era of one-sided deals is over," he wrote. Earlier in the week, Qalibaf had warned that Hormuz would reopen only on Iranian terms, not under American pressure.