TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said Thursday that two oil tankers seeking to cross the Strait of Hormuz via what it described as an "unsafe" southern route the previous night returned shortly after one of the vessels caught fire.
In a statement carried by its official news outlet Sepah News, the IRGC said the tankers had chosen the southern route following what it called provocations by U.S. military aircraft.
The IRGC reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz remains under the control of its naval forces. It warned that regional countries assisting the "aggressor" would face serious consequences unless they changed their policies.
The IRGC also said the waterway would remain closed amid continued U.S. threats and interference in regional maritime traffic.
Meanwhile, three people were killed and two others injured in a U.S. strike on a residential building on Qeshm Island in Iran's southern Hormozgan province early Thursday, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported.
The casualties were a couple and one of their children, Ahmad Nafisi, Hormozgan's deputy governor for political, security and social affairs, was quoted as saying. The two injured people, also children of the same family, were taken to the hospital.
Nafisi said the strike caused the building to collapse, and rescue teams recovered the victims and the injured from the rubble.
IRNA reported that the U.S. military carried out strikes early Thursday on multiple locations in southern Iran, including areas on Qeshm and Kish islands in Hormozgan province, as well as targets in Abadan, Farashband, Arvand Kenar and Ahvaz in Khuzestan province, Farashband and Kazerun in Fars province, and Bushehr, Khormoj and Jam in Bushehr province.
Earlier on Thursday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on the social media platform X that its forces had conducted "a heavy wave of strikes against Iran" in response to what it described as attempted missile attacks on U.S. forces the previous day.
It added, "CENTCOM assets struck dozens of IRGC targets in Iran, aiming to further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries."
The IRGC said Wednesday that it had launched ballistic missile attacks against a U.S. air base and the U.S. Army's central command center in Jordan in response to what it called U.S. "acts of aggression."
The latest escalation follows a days-long pause in hostilities between the two sides. ■
