Trump vows to hit Iran hard after first exchanges of fire in a month
DUBAI/ASHEVILLE, (North Carolina): US President Donald Trump on Monday promised further strikes against Iran after the first tit-for-tat attacks in a month, as a conflict that had lately settled into an economic standoff threatened to escalate into open fighting again.
Iran launched missiles overnight at two US air bases in Jordan in response to a US attack on Iran’s Larak Island, where Washington said it had struck Iranian launchers firing mines into the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” a Fox News reporter quoted Trump as later telling the channel. “There will be a response.”
A senior Iranian source told Reuters the overnight exchanges of fire, the first since late July, were a “limited and contained confrontation” but said Tehran would deliver a harsh response if attacked again.
Trump said US air defences had downed all Iranian missiles that could have caused any damage and that new US economic sanctions on Iran were having a big impact, Fox News reported.
Earlier, Trump had posted to social media two videos depicting explosions engulfing Iran’s main oil export terminal, with the message “Kharg island being blown to smithereens!!!”
But the videos were generated by AI and no such attack took place. Iran called Trump’s post “laughable”. Vice President JD Vance told reporters Trump “likes to switch it up on social media a little bit” and was “sending a message”.
Washington has so far mainly held off from hitting Iran’s major oil and gas infrastructure, a move that Iran says would be met with devastating attacks against its Gulf neighbours.
Since late July, the war that Trump launched with Israel six months ago has settled mostly into an economic standoff, with each side betting that rival blockades of shipping around the Gulf will force the other to back down.
Piling on economic pressure
Washington has recently stepped up efforts to punish Tehran and its business partners with “secondary sanctions” that hit third countries buying its oil.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that Iran was “lashing out” now because the new sanctions were taking a toll on its already battered economy.
“They’re in shock at the state of their economy,” Bessent told reporters at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in North Carolina. “I would think that they are lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically.”
Bessent told Reuters on Sunday that new secondary sanctions were likely to be unveiled weekly in the effort to pressure Iran, with an initial focus on banks.
US Hit Iranian island in Strait of Hormuz
US forces on Sunday struck two Iranian launchers on Iran’s Larak Island, a US official said, after “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz”.