US Fires 49 Missiles at Iran, Trump Threatens Strike

For Serbia, an economy that depends on steady oil flows and feels every jump in the market straight at the pump and in the budget, the third wave of American strikes on Iran is not a distant Middle East headline but a bill that reaches Belgrade. US Central Command, known as CENTCOM, said that on Wednesday evening, at 5:15 p.m. New York time, it began additional strikes in self-defense, and that roughly four hours later the operation was declared complete. President Donald Trump told American media that 49 Tomahawk missiles were fired, some of them hitting targets about 40 miles from Tehran.

According to the American account, aircraft struck radar systems and air defenses in southwestern Iran, with the Marines, the Air Force and the Navy taking part. The strikes hit, as Washington described it, Iranian surveillance systems, air defenses and communication networks, the very infrastructure that lets Tehran spot and repel the next incoming wave. The operation, US sources said, followed the downing of an American helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz, an episode that further sharpened the standoff in one of the most sensitive waterways in the world.

What is Trump actually demanding from Tehran?

Trump laid out the threat without diplomatic softening. He warned that if Iran’s leaders do not sign a deal, the United States will strike again.

The US will strike Iran again tomorrow if its leaders do not sign a deal.

That openly ties military pressure to the negotiating table: the bombing is presented as leverage meant to push Tehran toward a signature. At the same time, Trump claimed that Iranian officials had asked him to halt the strikes, but he replied that the attacks would resume absent an agreement. That framing, in which the same action is cast both as punishment and as offer, leaves Tehran little room: any refusal the following day can serve as a pretext for a new wave.

The geopolitical reality is that this is not an isolated incident but a third wave, which means the earlier escalation has already eroded part of Iran’s capacity and part of Washington’s patience. Targeting radar and air defenses is no accidental choice: it is groundwork, a systematic stripping away of the protective layers that would complicate any follow-on operation, whether American or Israeli.

How do the strikes hit markets and the region?

The fastest reaction came from the markets. Brent crude climbed toward 95 dollars a barrel as traders began pricing in the risk that the conflict could reach the Strait of Hormuz itself, through which a substantial share of the world’s oil exports passes. For energy importers, Serbia among them, every dollar on the barrel turns into higher costs for transport, heating and production, so the fallout from strikes near Tehran is felt far from the Middle East.

On the diplomatic front, European capitals are in a weaker position than usual. The EU’s High Representative and member states spent years building an approach to Iran grounded in the nuclear agreement and gradual dialogue, and the run of American strikes pushes that framework aside, leaving Brussels in the role of a spectator to someone else’s escalation. The transatlantic link is strained here: Washington chooses force, while European capitals fear that a spillover into Hormuz would hit precisely their markets and their energy stability.

For southeastern Europe, the stakes are twofold. The first is economic, through the price of oil and pressure on inflation that has only just begun to ease. The second is security, since every new round of strikes raises the odds of an Iranian response, whether direct or through allies in the region, which could set off a wider chain of reactions. Trump has made clear that the next move is Tehran’s and that the clock is running fast. If Iran refuses to sign, will the next wave of missiles fall as soon as tomorrow, as the American president threatens?