US Launches Strikes in Response to Iran’s Attempted Missile Attacks

The U.S. attacks on Wednesday were a ‘powerful response’ to Iranian attacks on Tuesday on U.S. forces based in the Middle East, CENTCOM said.

A U.S. military aircraft flies at an unknown location, during what U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) says are strikes on Iran, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on July 20, 2026. U.S. Central Command/Handout via Reuters

The United States began launching strikes on Iran at 8 p.m. Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) stated.

The attacks were “a powerful response to [Tuesday’s] attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted on X.

The attacks by Iran on U.S. forces didn’t get past U.S. defenses, according to the command.

President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday that the Iranian regime would “get a beating” after its previous day’s attack on the United States.

“We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump told Fox News on July 29. “They’re going to get a beating.” The Iranian attack came after the United States paused 13 consecutive days of attacks on Iran after a July 17 memorandum of understanding between the two countries fell apart.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched ballistic missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and the CENTCOM headquarters in Jordan. The Jordan military said that five Iranian missiles were intercepted and destroyed.

Trump also addressed a report by Reuters that cited unnamed sources saying Iran was buying 300 to 400 man-portable air defense systems from China, which the president on Wednesday said “would be surprising.”

Trump said on July 24 that both China and Russia had agreed not to sell or give weapons to Iran.

On a Truth Social post last week, Trump said Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping told him China “would not, under any circumstances, give or sell Weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Trump said that Xi knows he would be “quite disappointed” if China did sell weapons to Iran.

U.S. Central Command said Tuesday it joined forces with the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces and launched strikes against Iran-aligned terrorists in Iraq.
The United States said that Iran’s IRGC had directed those terrorists to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.

Iran-backed terrorists in Iraq have launched more than 30 aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours, none of which were successful, according to the U.S. military. From February through April of this year, they carried out more than 600 attempted attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities, according to the command.

This is a developing story and will be updated.