A furious Donald Trump has threatened to punish Iran following a “surprise” attack on US military targets in the Middle East.
The offensive took place days after the US president suspended air strikes over the region.
In an expletive-ridden outburst, he told Fox News: “We’re going to beat the f****** sh** out of them. We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”
In a day of escalation in the region, Saudi Arabia also joined the US in striking several Iran-backed groups.
Mr Trump’s angry comments came after the US Central Command said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had launched ballistic missiles at US military units.
Iran confirmed late on Tuesday that it had fired at US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and also rejected an Omani proposal to jointly manage the strait.
open image in galleryBacked by the other Gulf states, Oman has proposed a plan for joint regional control of the strait that would allow the payment of voluntary service charges.
But a senior Iranian official said Iran rejected the proposal as “unreasonable”.
The official said a 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran’s interests, though Tehran considers Oman a valuable neighbour.
Hopes of a cooling of regional tensions faded on Wednesday after Saudi Arabia joined the US in airstrikes that Washington and Riyadh said were in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.
Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded in the attacks.
Iraqi men shouted Shi’ite sectarian slogans and “Death to America!” as they carried the bodies of fighters out of a hospital in Mosul in northern Iraq, footage from Iraq’s Al-Ahad television showed.
open image in galleryIran said the attacks were an attempt by the United States and Israel to spread their war further in the region.
One of the Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, said US and Saudi forces would pay a “heavy price”.
Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, one of the few in the world to maintain close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, called an emergency meeting.
The Iraqi presidency denounced the strikes on the paramilitaries as“an unacceptable attack and a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty”, while also calling for a halt to attacks by armed groups against Iraq’s neighbours.
Saudi Arabia said on X that it “does not seek escalation” but “will respond to any aggression it faces”.
The kingdom has been drawn into the war on more than one front, as Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to impose fees on ships passing through the Red Sea.
The Iran-backed group was planning to implement their own tolls on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in an echo of Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
A blockade of Saudi ships through the strait, which is within range of the Houthis’ drones and rockets, has already been announced.
As a result, the Saudis launched air strikes against the Houthis for the first time since 2022.
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open image in galleryIn a politically charged week, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House on Tuesday to discuss Iran with Mr Trump in the pair’s first sit-down since the war began.
The meeting lasted nearly 90 minutes and was “positive and productive”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
In a social media posting several hours after the talks, Mr Trump called it a “very good meeting” where “many important subjects were discussed” but offered no further details.
An Israeli official briefed on the White House meeting said Mr Netanyahu made it clear to Mr Trump and his cabinet that if Iran were to attack Israel, they would respond, but that beyond that, they would trust the judgement of the president regarding next steps.