The US military struck Larak Island off Iran’s southern coast Sunday, destroying two rocket launchers that Iranian forces had positioned to fire mine-carrying projectiles into the Strait of Hormuz, according to CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins. It’s the first American strike on Iran since July 29 — a full month of relative quiet in a war that’s now been running for six months.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed the explosions and said the strike caused “casualties among Iranian forces and civilians,” without giving numbers. The Guard called it “a strategic and deadly mistake” and retaliated within hours by firing missiles at US forces in Jordan — all of which were intercepted, per US officials. Brent crude jumped 2.8% to $90.57 a barrel on the news, the market’s usual reflex whenever anything happens near Hormuz, the chokepoint about a fifth of the world’s oil passes through.
This is a smaller, narrower strike than the sustained bombing campaigns that defined the war’s earlier months. The February 28 opening salvo hit Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites directly; the string of strikes through May, June, and July went after command centers, air defenses, and missile sites in what CENTCOM at the time called “consecutive nights” of bombing.
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