As Operation Epic Fury continues, US Central Command said on Tuesday that its forces were fully under control. Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East as head of Central Command, said the first 24 hours of the “Operation Epic Fury” bombing of Iran was “almost twice the scale” of the first 24 hours of the “Shock and Awe” campaign that launched the 2003 Iraq War.
“Ahead of our game plan”
“We’re seeing Iran’s ability to strike us and our partners diminish, while our combat power on the other side is growing,” Cooper said in the video. “My overall operational assessment is that we’re ahead of our game plan.
Cooper said Iran’s air defenses had been severely degraded, its navy had no operational vessels in key waterways after 17 were sunk, and that more than 2,000 Iranian targets had been hit.
“More Powers on the Way”
According to him, about 50,000 American soldiers, 200 fighter jets, two aircraft carriers and bombers are participating in this operation. He added that “additional capabilities” are on the way.
“These forces are bringing massive amounts of firepower to bear, representing the largest buildup in the Middle East in generations,” he said.
Iran’s air defenses, navy destroyed
Admiral Cooper gave further details of the ongoing operation, in less than a hundred hours the US had struck over 200 targets in Iran.
“We have seriously degraded Iran’s air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles, launchers and drones. Simply put, we are targeting things that can fire at us,” he said.
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“We are also sinking the Iranian navy, the entire navy. So far we have destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including Iran’s most operational submarine,” he added.
Iran cannot block the Strait of Hormuz
In response to the US strikes, Iran has fired missiles and drones at neighboring Arab states that host US bases and choked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows around its coast.
But according to Admiral Cooper, Iran is no longer able to block the Strait of Hormuz.
“Today, there is not a single Iranian ship in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman. We will not stop and will continue to conduct dynamic and targeted operations,” he said.
What Iran said
Meanwhile, Iran said on Tuesday it had hit a US destroyer in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of kilometers from Iran’s border, with “Ghadr-380” and “Talaieh” missiles.
According to the IRGC, more than 650 US troops were killed and wounded in the first two days after Iran’s retaliatory strikes, called Operation True Promise 4.
“During the first two days of the war, 650 American soldiers were killed and wounded,” Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini said on Tuesday.
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Number of civilian casualties in Iran
Iran also said the country’s civilian casualties from the US strikes reached 787 on Tuesday. This included 165 girls killed on the first day of the war when their school was bombed, the highest number of several civilian sites said to have been hit.
Key things
- The US has successfully targeted and destroyed critical components of Iran’s military infrastructure.
- Casualties quickly escalated on both sides, highlighting the severity of the conflict.
- The strategic balance in the region is shifting as the US asserts dominance over key waterways.
