US military launches new airstrikes to 'swiftly punish' Iran for deaths of US troops

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military said that it carried out new airstrikes against Iran on Sunday to “swiftly punish” the country’s Revolutionary Guard after an attack on a base in Jordan killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalization.

The strikes were designed to further degrade Iran’s ability to restrict the traffic of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said. The waterway accounted for roughly 20% of global oil supplies before the war. Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28.

The new strikes came after the U.S. military announced its first troop deaths from direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, following a drone and missile attack on a base in Jordan on Friday. The dead were not identified, and Central Command didn't offer any further details on the deaths.

Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.

An area near Sirik, on the Strait of Hormuz, was targeted around 1:30 a.m. local time, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, which cited local authorities in southern Hormozgan province.

In the same province, a location near Hajiabad was targeted and explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, according to IRNA. An area near Qeshm Island, which is inside the strait, was also targeted, according to Iran's state-run broadcaster, IRIB.

On Saturday, Iranian state media reported that U.S. airstrikes had hit an electricity and desalination plant in Hormozgan and damaged tunnels and bridges, disrupting a main highway toward Bandar Abbas, the site of Iran’s main port near the narrowest part of the strait.

An official in Khuzestan province, also on the Gulf, said a strike hit near the city of Shadegan, according to state media.

Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. in the past week also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil, and the military on Saturday said it had redirected five ships and disabled one since then.

Iranian authorities said Saturday that at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.

In neighboring Iraq, a base of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, an Iranian Kurdish dissident group, near Irbil was struck by a drone early Sunday, wounding eight of its members, according to Rebaz Sharifi, a military official with the group.

Residents of Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, also heard explosions from air defenses early Sunday.

Irbil has been targeted by drone attacks multiple times over the past four days, which coincided with a visit by new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to Washington last week and an ongoing escalation between the U.S. and Iran.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but in the past both Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi militias have launched attacks in the Kurdish region, where both U.S. troops and armed Kurdish Iranian dissident groups are present.

Minutes before the U.S. announced the troop deaths earlier Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic.

The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.” An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.

Iran’s joint military command said that U.S. “covetousness, bullying, totalitarianism or brutality” would meet with a “devastating response.”

Tehran's declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but also its armed proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance." The U.S. issued a global travel alert over the rising tensions.

The battle has focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz. The widening strikes now threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.

The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.

There was no new word on mediation efforts.

The last recorded death of a U.S. service member was that of a helicopter pilot who crashed in the Arabian Sea earlier this month. Early in the war, an Iranian drone strike on a command center in Kuwait killed six soldiers. Another soldier died after an attack on a base in Saudi Arabia, and six were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.

On Saturday, the most significant damage from Iranian strikes occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.

It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water. The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline.

Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.

Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.

The secretary-general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.

This story has been corrected to change the day to Sunday from Saturday to reflect the Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dateline.

Ezzidin reported from Cairo and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq; and Matt Lee and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

A man displays a placard with portraits of the current and late supreme leaders and the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani at the Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People look at books which are placed for sale on a street in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A woman walks past a mural depicting a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strike on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Women sit beneath a banner reading in English, "Kill Trump," during a pro-government rally in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Women gather during a pro-government rally as one holds a sign reading in English, "Kill Trump," in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

MIAMI (AP) — A famous Cuban dissident artist and musician, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on the condition that he leave his country.

Alcántara, 38, was greeted at the airport by a crowd that was cheering, singing and holding their phones high in the air to get a photo of him. They draped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words “Patria y Vida” — “Homeland and Life” — the title of a song he shared a Grammy for that became an anthem for Cuba’s political opposition against repression.

The United States granted him parole into the country earlier this week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism.

Alcántara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement — named for the neighborhood where Alcántara lived.

He was arrested on July 11, 2021, during a public protest. In 2022, a court sentenced him to five years in prison for public disorder, contempt and disrespect toward national symbols.

His arrest and incarceration had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the U.S. government. Groups including Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, an allegation the Cuban government rejected.

Alcántara was held in a maximum-security prison, he said, and was expected to be released last week. But for days, advocates said they still could not contact him and did not know where he was.

The organization Cubalex, which legally advises dissidents and reports human rights violations from outside of the country, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf Monday.

Until he boarded a plane Saturday, his advocates were not sure of his location, or if he was truly free.

His said his first stop on American soil would be at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity to make an offering.

Other political prisoners remained imprisoned, including his fellow artist Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez, his advocates said, and they hoped Alcántara's release would prompt insistence that Pérez also be set free.

Alcántara brought from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin Mary, which he described as a symbol of hope and healing, a chance to put back together something from fragments.

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara reacts after arriving at Miami International Airport on Saturday, July 18, 2026, after serving a five-year prison sentence in Cuba. (AP Photo/David Santiago)

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrives at Miami International Airport on Saturday, July 18, 2026, after serving a five-year prison sentence in Cuba. (AP Photo/David Santiago)