DUBAI/ASHEVILLE, North Carolina–U.S. President Donald Trump was quoted on Monday as promising to "hit them hard" after Iran launched missiles overnight at two U.S. air bases in Jordan in response to a U.S. attack on Iran's Larak island.
"We're going to hit them hard," a Fox News reporter quoted Trump as telling the channel. "There will be a response."
Piling on Economic Pressure
Washington has recently stepped up efforts to punish Tehran and its business partners with costly secondary sanctions, with diplomacy in stalemate six months into a war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, echoing Trump, said on Monday the resumed exchanges of fire showed that Iran was "lashing out" now because the new sanctions were taking a heavy toll on its already battered economy.
"They're taking it very seriously...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."
US Hit Iranian Island in Strait of Hormuz
U.S. forces on Sunday struck two Iranian launchers on Iran's Larak Island, a U.S. official said, after "Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz".Three people were killed in the U.S. attack, Tasnim news agency reported. The state-affiliated Nournews said two of them had been identified as members of the Revolutionary Guards Navy.
Larak is a small island in the strait near the strategic Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally handles a fifth of global crude oil shipments, has been effectively blocked since the start of the war.
In a statement, the U.S. Central Command said it took "limited, precise" action against minelaying forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards that posed an "imminent threat" in the strait. It gave no details.
In response, as well as attacking the U.S. bases in Jordan, Iran's army said it had struck the Al Minhad air base in the United Arab Emirates early on Monday. However, the UAE's defence ministry dismissed that report as false.
President Says Iran Still Wants Negotiated End to Conflict
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian struck a milder tone on Monday, telling India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Kyrgyzstan that his country still sought a negotiated resolution of the conflict.'Blown to Smithereens!!!'
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday an AI-generated video clip that he said showed Iran's oil hub Kharg Island being "blown to smithereens!!!"Trump was sending a message to Iran with his social media post, Vice President JD Vance said on Monday.
"The president likes to switch it up on social media a little bit. He would be the first to say he doesn't make announcements about military actions on social media, but I think that he's sending a message to the Iranians," Vance said when asked about Trump's post.