Iran has again claimed attacks on United States military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, and targeted two vessels in the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for renewed waves of US attacks on the country.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched drone strikes on Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa airbase and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem and Ahmad Al-Jaber airbases early on Thursday.

The Al-Azraq Airbase in Jordan was also targeted with 12 ballistic missiles, it said, while two oil tankers that attempted “to illegally pass through” the Strait of Hormuz were also hit.

Bahrain activated air raid sirens twice, while Kuwait said its air defence systems were “intercepting hostile aerial targets”.

The IRGC said the strikes were in response to the US’s “repeated violations” of an April ceasefire and declared the Strait of Hormuz “closed until further notice”.

All traffic in the waterway, including oil tankers and commercial vessels, would be shot at, it said.

The attacks came after the US’s Central Command announced renewed strikes on “multiple targets” inside Iran. The military said the strikes were at President Donald Trump’s “direction” and “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression”.

Tit-for-tat exchanges

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said about a dozen places were hit in three waves of attacks by the US, including in the city of Karaj, west of the Iranian capital, and in the central Abyek county.

Iranian state media reported multiple explosions on the islands of Qeshm and Kish and in the cities of Bandar Abbas and Sirik along the Strait of Hormuz.

Blasts also hit the southern city of Kargan, wounding at least two people.

The US Central Command, which announced an end to the strikes four hours after they began at 22:15GMT on Wednesday, said it hit “military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites across Iran”.

The latest exchange came a day after the two sides traded tit-for-tat strikes triggered by the downing of a US Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz. Washington blamed Tehran for the incident and said the two pilots were rescued uninjured.

Iran said it targeted the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, the Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait, as well as an airbase in Azraq, Jordan, on Wednesday. The US, meanwhile, bombed Qeshm Island as well as the ports of Sirik, Jask and Bandar Abbas.

Tehran said the US attacks destroyed two water reservoirs and damaged a telecommunications tower.

Al Jazeera’s Vall said many of the locations hit on Thursday “were similar to those hit during the previous night”. He said “the Americans are betting on force as the only means for them to force the Iranians to sign a deal, but the Iranians saying that the result will be the contrary”.

Trump threatens Iran

At the White House on Wednesday, Trump accused Iran of stalling negotiations for a peace deal and threatened to hit the country “very hard”.

“We’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal. But they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers,” he told reporters.

Earlier in the day, the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform that Iran had taken too long to negotiate a peace deal and “now they will have to pay the price”.

In a subsequent interview with Fox News, he also threatened to strike power plants and bridges in Iran if it was unwilling to sign an agreement.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian hit back in a post on X.

“Critical infrastructures are the lifeblood of the people. Threats to target them �" from transportation networks to the electricity and water industries �" are not a show of strength but a sign of desperation in the face of a nation’s will,” he wrote.

“Iran, relying on the knowledge and capabilities of its specialists, national unity, and solidarity, will stand firm against any pressure or threat,” he added.

The US-Iran escalation comes days after Israel and Iran traded fire in their most serious clash since the April ceasefire, which ended weeks of devastating US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Gulf.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has remained severely limited ever since, driving up oil and food prices worldwide.

Progress towards a peace deal also remains slow.

The two sides are engaged in indirect talks aimed at securing an interim agreement that would halt hostilities, while deferring Iran’s nuclear programme to future negotiations.

But sticking points remain, with Iran demanding the release of frozen assets and relief from sanctions. Complicating matters further is Israel’s intensifying campaign in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.