U.S. Hits Iran's Antiship Missile Sites in the Strait of Hormuz
U.S. Central Command announced Tuesday that it has bombed Iranian antiship cruise missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, an attempt to reduce risk to merchant ships and naval vessels in the narrow waterway. The attack follows President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. would reopen the strait on its own, and no longer has a "need or desire" for allied help in defeating Iran's ongoing blockade.
The airstrikes address an unresolved question: Iran has not employed its substantial antiship cruise missile inventory at scale in the two-week-old conflict, prompting speculation that it could be holding these higher-end munitions in reserve for better targets - like Western naval vessels, which have so far kept their distance from the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM has addressed this threat by hitting Iran's protected antiship missile sites along the strait with 5,000-pound deep penetrator bombs, the command said late Tuesday.
CENTCOM did not provide a battle damage assessment or details about the sites targeted. Commercial satellite services have voluntarily imposed a multiday delay for images of the region, which means that independent open-source assessments are more limited than in other recent conflicts.
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The munition in question is the GBU-72 bunker-busting bomb, a 5,000-pound penetrating warhead attached to a standard JDAM tail-mounted guidance kit from a 2,000-pound bomb. It is a relatively new addition to the U.S. Air Force arsenal, dating to 2021; it is believed to be capable of penetrating in excess of 150 of earth, and has likely been used in combat at least once against Houthi targets. It can be delivered by the Air Force's F-15E strike fighter, the B-1B, and (potentially) the B-2 and B-52 - all of which have made an appearance in the Iran conflict.
As the Air Force has already expended part of its scarce 30,000-pound GBU-57 inventory in previous strikes on the Iranian nuclear program, the use of the smaller and cheaper GBU-72 preserves the stockpile of super-heavy munitions for other targets.