U.S. Strikes Iran Again In The Strait Of Hormuz. Tehran Vows ‘Harsh Punishment.’

The U.S. military conducted a new round of strikes against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command said.

"Today at 12 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region," CENTCOM said in a social media post. Attacks took place in Bandar Abbas, Jask, Chabahar, Konarak, Minab, Sirik, and the islands of Qeshm and Lavan.

Hours earlier, maritime security consultant Marisks noted that two tankers had been hit while seeking to exit the Persian Gulf. Both were transiting the waterway near Oman. Iran has said that vessels can only pass through a route that has been approved by authorities and sought to struck those that don't.

The Trump administration was already considering renewed strikes, with Axios detailing that the goal would be to prevent Iran from rebuilding radar and missile capabilities around the waterway.

Trump also said on social media that the attacks were taking place, saying they are "in retaliation for the Iranians' failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, which currently has no mines (They have been completely removed or detonated!), and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan."

"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" Trump then warned.

Iran, however, vowed to retaliate. "Harsh punishment awaits the aggressors. The United States will regret its new attacks," a spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said, according to Iran International.

The country's Armed Forces General Staff, added that Iran "will deliver crushing and devastating blows to the vile and hostile American enemy."

"The more the terrorist US military persists in its hostile actions in the region, the greater and heavier the losses it will have to bear," the statement adds. "We have repeatedly declared, and are determined, that under no circumstances will we retreat from the rights of the heroic Iranian nation, and we will impose heavy costs on the American enemy."