US strikes came after ‘unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces’ CENTCOM says

Defense US strikes came after ‘unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces’ CENTCOM says Comments: by Ryan Mancini - 07/08/26 7:56 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Ryan Mancini - 07/08/26 7:56 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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The Trump administration said Tuesday that the latest strikes on Iran came only after “unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces” after three commercial oil vessels in the Strait of Hormuz were under attack.

The airstrikes hit over 80 targets, including Iranian defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities and more than 60 small boats belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) located in and near the strait, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.

“The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation,” Centcom stated, adding that it is “prepared to hold Iran accountable when the agreement is not adhered to or obeyed.”

The U.S. strikes on Iran occurred only hours after the Trump administration revoked a sanctions waiver that permitted the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemicals. The sanctions waiver was a component of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by both the U.S. and Iran to halt hostilities and finalize a peace agreement.

President Trump told reporters while at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, that he thinks the MOU is “over.” He added that U.S. negotiators will “have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them [Iran].”

“I don’t want to deal with them anymore, they’re scum,” the president continued. “You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people.”

Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire agreement, writing on the social platform X that the “era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”

Iran’s military retaliated early Wednesday morning with drone strikes on several U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, and shot down an American MQ-9 drone over Bushehr Province along Iran’s western coast next to the Persian Gulf, calling these counterattacks an “initial response,” the state-aligned Fars News Agency reported.

In the days leading up to the attacks, Iranians flooded city streets as millions of mourners attended the funeral procession for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.

The procession is set to conclude on Thursday, where Khamenei will be buried in the Imam Reza shrine in his birthplace of Mashhad.