The United States and Iran exchanged military strikes for a second consecutive night, despite the fragile truce in place between them since April, as President Donald Trump threatened further escalation if Tehran did not swiftly accept the terms of a deal he has been insisting for weeks is imminent.
Trump said US forces struck Iran with 49 Tomahawk missiles, adding that the strikes could halt if Iran accepts the proposed agreement. The United States, he claimed, would continue its military pressure on Iran unless it immediately agreed to the deal meant to end the war that has been ongoing since February.
According to Reuters, Trump told a Fox News reporter that Tehran has taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been in its interest, hinting at a resumption of “intense bombardment” if negotiations continued without progress.
Trump’s warning followed a wave of strikes carried out by the US military on Wednesday night, targeting military and defense sites near the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command announced the conclusion of the military operation approximately four hours after it began, stating that the strikes targeted air defense systems, radars, communications sites, and command-and-control centers, which it said posed a “threat to US forces and international shipping in the region.”
The strikes were similar to a previous round carried out on Tuesday night in response to the downing of an American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Those exchanges brought the confrontation between the two countries back to the fore after more than two months of a truce intended to pave the way for a permanent agreement.
In response, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced retaliatory strikes targeting 18 American military targets including the Ali Salem and Ahmed Al-Jaber air bases in Kuwait and Shaikh Isa base in Bahrain, before announcing the targeting of Al-Azraq air base in Jordan with 12 missiles, claiming it “destroyed these facilities and a large number of fighter jets.”
Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters also threatened to target any vessel attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has almost completely closed for months following joint US-Israeli aggression. Iranian media reported that two US vessels came under fire, though US Central Command denied that the strait was closed or that its ships had been fired upon, confirming that commercial vessels continued to transit.
Reuters, citing Iranian news agencies, reported that a number of cities came under US fire, including Sirik, Korjan, Bandar Abbas, Minab, and Karaj near the strait, as well as Varamin in the far north near the Caspian Sea.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth justified the actions as an effort to force Iran into concluding a deal to end the conflict. Speaking at Central Command in Florida before the strikes, he said Washington was “clearly signaling” to Iran’s leaders and hoped to “enhance” its diplomatic position. “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we will negotiate with bombs,” Hegseth concluded.
The ongoing escalation reflects a contradiction that has come to characterize US strategy toward Iran: while Trump has repeated for weeks that an agreement is close, Washington continues to expand its military operations and increase field pressure against Tehran.
Iran accused the United States of violating international law by bombing civilian water storage infrastructure in 10 villages. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, “This is not collateral damage—it is a calculated war crime and a flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.”
Axios, citing two unnamed sources, reported that Trump met on Wednesday with officials including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and White House envoy Steve Witkoff, with Hegseth joining remotely from CENTCOM.
According to Axios, the meeting discussed a large-scale, short-duration operation aimed at pressuring Iran to alter its stance in negotiations, following Iran’s delay in responding to Trump’s latest ceasefire proposal.
Despite the escalation, CNN, citing an unnamed diplomatic source, reported that indirect talks between Washington and Tehran had not stopped, and that a Qatari delegation left Tehran on Thursday morning after a round of negotiations that lasted into the early hours of the morning, in coordination with the United States.
Ongoing mediation cannot conceal the severe strain on talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program, uranium enrichment thresholds, and the removal of US sanctions. The diplomatic track faces further gridlock over Tehran’s insistence on conditioning any permanent accord on an end to the Israeli military campaign in Lebanon. With both sides dug into their core demands, the region remains at a critical crossroads between a stalled diplomatic path and a broader military confrontation.
