The U.S. military carried out overnight strikes in Iran targeting a military site and shot down four enemy one-way attack drones near the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes hit an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was preparing to launch a fifth drone.
A senior U.S. official also confirmed to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid early Thursday that Iran launched four one-way drones at a U.S. commercial ship and that the U.S. shot them down and attacked “another Iranian drone launching unit on the ground before it launched.”
The previously unreported actions occurred amid ongoing negotiations to end the three-month-old conflict that began Feb. 28 with joint American and Israeli military strikes against the Iranian regime. A ceasefire has been in place since April 8.
“These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the official said, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted a U.S. airbase at 4:50 a.m. local time on Thursday following what it described as an early morning U.S. attack near Bandar Abbas airport, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Reuters reported. The IRGC did not specify the location of the base and warned that any further “aggression” would prompt a “more decisive” response, adding that responsibility for the consequences would lie with the “aggressor.”
Kuwait said it came under a missile and drone attack on Thursday, with no immediate claim of responsibility, the Associated Press reported. The incident followed the U.S. strikes targeting Iran.
