Iran launched a wave of attacks on US sites across the Middle East on Wednesday as violence surged after an extensive American bombardment and the deaths of four people at an Iranian wedding party.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced attacks on US bases in Jordan, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, in the six-month conflict’s heaviest exchange in weeks.
US President Donald Trump had warned earlier of “much harder and higher” attacks if Iran retaliated against the US strikes, which Iran’s military and state media said killed 18 people.
The renewed attacks deepen the impasse in the war, as Iran maintains a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz oil export route while the US presses a counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
In the latest strikes, the Iranian Red Crescent said on Tuesday that four people, including a child, were killed and more than 50 people were wounded by a US attack at a wedding in Iran’s south.
A video shared by an Iranian government account showed debris and damage at what it said was the wedding site in Sirik following a US strike, with people heard screaming in the background.
“Unfortunately, this is a residential building. And unfortunately, this happened during my daughter’s wedding ceremony,” Ali Mallahi, father of the bride and owner of the building, said in a video carried by state TV.
“It is a very saddening incident… Thank God the casualties were not higher.”
Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf lashed out over the wedding attack, calling the United States “Satan”.
“If a power acts like Satan, picks targets like Satan, and kills like Satan, it’s Satan,” he posted on X.
The US military did not address the incident directly.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Tim Hawkins said, “The US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC”, referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Excerpts culled from Yahoo News, originally written by AFP