Tehran: America will pay the price for spilling the blood of innocents, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in response to a reported strike on residential areas on Qeshm Island.
Labelling it a terrorist attack, he accused the US of deliberately targeting civilians, as reported by ANI.
Ghalibaf asserted that the incident follows a pattern of similar atrocities in Minab and Lamerd, in a post on X.
“The United States soils its hands with a new crime every day; the terrorist attack on the residential homes of civilians on Qeshm Island is a continuation of the atrocities in Minab and Lamerd. Americans have grown accustomed to making up for the slaps they receive on the battlefield by spilling the blood of the innocent. They will pay the price,” he wrote.
This was in response to claims by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) of having carried out a “heavy wave of strikes” against dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran on Wednesday (local time). It called the action a response to attempted Iranian missile strikes on US forces in West Asia.
The strikes, completed at 10 pm ET on July 29, targeted IRGC military command centres, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defence sites, and maritime capabilities, CENTCOM stated in a press release.
Iranian forces had launched multiple ballistic missiles on July 28 in an attempted surprise attack on US personnel stationed in the Middle East, the US military further stated, adding that all of the missiles were successfully intercepted.
More than 50,000 US service members remain deployed across the Middle East and are “highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready”, CENTCOM said.
Hostilities intensified significantly with Tehran claiming that it had destroyed three US F-35 fighter jets and heavily damaged three others at Jordan’s Al-Azraq Air Base on Thursday in retaliation for American attacks on Qeshm Island.
The Aerospace Force of the IRGC launched several ballistic missiles at the deployment ramp and maintenance facilities housing US F-35 fighter aircraft at Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan, the state media, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) stated.
Several US officers and technical and maintenance personnel were also killed in the attack, the IRGC claimed.
The operation was carried out in response to a US airstrike on Qeshm Island on Wednesday night, the statement added.
American forces, operating from bases in Jordan, targeted two residential houses with bunker-busting bombs, killing three of a family, including a child, while injuring two other children, the IRGC alleged.
