WASHINGTON ( WNAM MONITORING): The US military said it shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and then struck some of Iran’s radar sites in response.
“The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” US Central Command said on social media.
US forces subsequently struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island to defend against further attacks, CENTCOM added.
Earlier on Friday, CENTCOM denied Iran’s claims that it fired warning shots at US warships in the Gulf of Oman, forcing American vessels to “retreat” toward the Indian Ocean.
“US forces continue to operate freely in regional waters while fully enforcing the ongoing blockade against Iran,” CENTCOM said.
The US military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments, which has sent energy prices spiking.
It was the latest in back-and-forth attacks that have strained the tenuous ceasefire in the war and efforts to reach a deal to extend that truce.
Earlier this week, Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s main airport, killing one person, wounding dozens and briefly closing the airfield.
Iranian missile stockpile
Iran still has “21, 22 percent” of its missiles left, US President Donald Trump said Friday, in a week in which Tehran fired dozens of them toward regional neighbors, despite a sputtering ceasefire.
“They still have capacity. They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say, percentage wise, maybe 21, 22 percent of their missiles,” Trump told NBC News in an interview.
“It’s a lot of missiles, but it’s not what it was when we first attacked,” Trump was quoted as saying.
That figure for Iran’s missile stockpile is higher than one of 18 percent Trump gave in May. He has often claimed to have completely destroyed Iran’s war-fighting capacity.
Despite the attacks raising new concerns that the ceasefire could collapse, Trump told reporters Friday that “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well.”
“We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” Trump said at an event with farmers in Wisconsin. “The very tough way is maybe the easier way, but we’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.”
