The US military has confirmed it carried out roughly an hour of "heavy" strikes against Iran on Wednesday, with Centcom saying dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets were hit and that all of Iran's retaliatory missiles were intercepted. The action follows Tuesday's Iranian ballistic missile and naval attacks on US bases in Jordan and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, marking a sharp escalation of a war that has now run for five months despite President Trump's initial prediction it would last only weeks.

Centcom said the strikes, which began at 20:00 ET (01:00 BST Thursday), targeted military command centres, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance sites and maritime capabilities. Iran's IRGC said it had struck a US air base and command centre in Jordan and hit three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The escalation followed the first publicly acknowledged joint US-Saudi strikes on Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq, which Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces said killed at least 20 of its members and which Baghdad denounced as a violation of its sovereignty. Axios reported that Trump had separately met Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, who conveyed Riyadh's wish to de-escalate, though the White House has not commented.