Iran has pledged to enact revenge after US struck Iran on Sunday, the first known attack on the country since late July.
US officials confirmed the strike on Larak Island, adding that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces had been seen preparing to launch sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC, responding, said the US “will pay for the attack” on “both economic and military fronts”.
Iran also said several soldiers had been killed as a result of the attack, according to the regime’s state news agency.
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Larak Island sits within the Strait of Hormuz, near Qeshm Island and the key port city of Bandar Abbas.
Iran has forced tankers to pass by the island for checking, making them pay up to $2million (£1.5million) to pass.
“Earlier today US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island. IRGC forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into Strait of Hormuz,” US Central Command (Centcom) spokesman Capt Tim Hawkins said.
He added that American troops were “monitoring the area closely” and intended to protect the “free flow of commerce” through the vital waterway.
IRGC has already launched a counter-attack, launching missiles at US forces stationed in Jordan, according to a Fox News reporter citing a US source.
No major impacts were reported, and all incoming missiles have been intercepted, the channel’s foreign correspondent added.
The strike on Iranian launchers launching sea mines follows President Donald Trump’s declaration on Truth Social that the strait had been completely demined last week.
At the time, the President said any ship or boat placing new mines would be “immediately and systematically destroyed”.
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Mr Trump said the US Space Force was monitoring “every square inch” of the crucial water passage, saying: “There is a Zero Tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect.”
The crucial waterway and its economic effects has been central to the war in the current stage.
Washington, last week, launched “Operation Economic Outcast“, targeting Tehran economically rather than militarily after reports of poor conditions faced by US sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Mr Trump has insisted the Strait of Hormuz is controlled by the US – going so far as to say it could become a “territory” before his latest renaming spree.
On Friday, the White House said in a statement that Centcom could confirm “what Democrats and the Fake News have spent months denying: the United States — not the Islamic Republic of Iran — controls the Strait of Hormuz”.
The IRGC Navy soon hit back, saying it remained in “full control” of the waterway, and said the statement was an attempt to control oil prices
Despite his proclamations, the number of vessels transiting the strait dropped to five per day over the weekend, according to Reuters’ shipping data.
And earlier on Sunday, a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting in bound through the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency.
This marked the third attack in the strait reported by the agency over the past week.
A fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed through the vital waterway before the war began.
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