A U.S. military aircraft takes off from an unknown location during what U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) says are strikes on Iran, in this screengrab from a handout video released on July 29, 2026. U.S. Central Command/Handout via Reuters
The U.S. military said on Wednesday that it successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran that lasted two hours and hit dozens of targets, in response to Tehran’s attempted missile attacks on a U.S. military base the day before.
In a statement posted on X, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities.
The attacks were “a powerful response to [Tuesday’s] attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East,” CENTCOM said in a statement earlier Wednesday night.
CENTCOM said the strikes began at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday and ended at 10 p.m. ET.
The strikes aimed to eliminate threats posed by Iran to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries. More than 50,000 U.S. service members are currently deployed to the Middle East and remain highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready.
The attacks by Iran on U.S. forces didn’t get past U.S. defenses, according to the command.
President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday that the Iranian regime would “get a beating” after its previous day’s attack on the United States.
“We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump told Fox News on July 29. “They’re going to get a beating.” The Iranian attack came after the United States paused 13 consecutive days of attacks on Iran after a July 17 memorandum of understanding between the two countries fell apart.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched ballistic missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and the CENTCOM headquarters in Jordan. The Jordan military said that five Iranian missiles were intercepted and destroyed.
Trump also addressed a report by Reuters that cited unnamed sources saying Iran was buying 300 to 400 man-portable air defense systems from China, which the president on Wednesday said “would be surprising.”
Trump said on July 24 that both China and Russia had agreed not to sell or give weapons to Iran.
On a Truth Social post last week, Trump said Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping told him China “would not, under any circumstances, give or sell Weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Trump said that Xi knows he would be “quite disappointed” if China did sell weapons to Iran.
U.S. Central Command said Tuesday it joined forces with the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces and launched strikes against Iran-aligned terrorists in Iraq.
The United States said that Iran’s IRGC had directed those terrorists to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.
Iran-backed terrorists in Iraq have launched more than 30 aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours, none of which were successful, according to the U.S. military. From February through April of this year, they carried out more than 600 attempted attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities, according to the command.
As the war with Iran continues, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that the U.S. stockpile of weapons is being drained, especially after recent reports that said the U.S. paused attacks on Iran to assess its weapons stocks.
In response to the reports, Trump told The Wall Street Journal on July 27, “We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.”
