Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Tuesday that its aerospace forces had carried out a heavy ballistic missile attack on US drone hangars at Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan, hours after a US strike killed several people at a wedding in Sirik, southern Iran.
In a statement, the Guards said the hangars housed RQ-4 and MQ-9 drones, and claimed that several of the aircraft were destroyed while pilots and technical personnel were killed.
The IRGC added that a number of technical facilities at the base were set on fire, and described the strike explicitly as retaliation for the earlier US attack near Sirik, where Iranian officials have reported casualties among people attending a wedding.
IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi warned of further retaliation, saying: "A harsh punishment awaits the aggressors, and America will regret its new attacks," Press TV reported.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, speaking to Fox News before US Central Command had completed its latest round of strikes, said any Iranian response would be met with overwhelming force.
"If they do respond, they'll be hit much harder," he said, adding that a third strike would leave Iran "totally wiped out as a country."
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Trump also dismissed the prospect of renewed diplomacy, saying "an agreement with them isn't worth the paper it's written on," and claimed Iranian forces had attempted to rebuild a radar installation before US forces struck it:
"We waited until it was almost built and then we hit it." He said the USS George Washington was "loaded to the gills" in the region, adding: "We're loaded up."
The exchange marks a sharp escalation of the conflict, which had entered a month-long lull before US strikes resumed at the weekend.
The strike on the wedding venue in Kuhestak had already drawn condemnation from senior Iranian officials, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei calling it proof that "the United States' catalogue of atrocities against the nation of Iran is now complete.
Baqaei said in a separate statement that "the United States' catalogue of atrocities against the nation of Iran is now complete" and that "Iran will respond to these savage crimes with firmness."
Parliamentary Security Committee chairman Ebrahim Azizi vowing that "nothing will protect them from the crushing will of Iran's Armed Forces."
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The renewed hostilities have pushed global oil prices higher and raised the stakes for control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply normally passes.
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