Trump vows retaliation after Iran fires missiles at US base in Jordan

Washington, Sep 1 (IANS) US President Donald Trump on Monday (local time) vowed retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan overnight.

“We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump told Fox News in a phone interview. “There will be a response.”

The president said US forces allowed one Iranian missile to pass through air defenses overnight after determining it would not hit anything, while the other incoming missiles were intercepted, reports Xinhua news agency.

However, there is still a slim hope for possible talks, according to Trump.

“They want to meet so badly,” Trump said. “I just don’t know if you can count on a deal with them.”

“The sanctions are kicking in really strongly,” said the president.

Iran fired at least eight ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan on Sunday following a US airstrike on Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) launchers on Larak Island, Fox News reported, citing a US source. The report said there were no significant impacts.

The Iranian military targeted “technical and maintenance infrastructure,” as well as areas where “enemy fighter jets” were stationed at the King Hussein and Al-Azraq US bases in Jordan, inflicting heavy damage, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, citing an IRGC statement.

The US Central Command described the strike as a “limited, precise action” against Iranian minelaying forces that it said posed an “imminent threat” to commercial shipping and the free flow of global commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.

Following the attack, the IRGC said in a statement that a number of military personnel and civilians were killed or wounded in the attack and vowed that the strike would be responded to with “punishment for the aggressor.”

Citing unofficial reports, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said that at least two people were killed and two others injured in what it described as a US “drone attack” on the island.

–IANS

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