{"id":2844,"date":"2026-03-18T16:43:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2844"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:43:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:43:21","slug":"us-military-drops-5000-pound-deep-penetrator-bombs-near-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2844","title":{"rendered":"US military drops 5,000-pound deep-penetrator bombs near Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military dropped multiple 5,000-pound deep-penetrator bombs on \u201chardened\u201d Iranian anti-ship missile sites on Tuesday along the country\u2019s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait,\u201d the U.S. Central Command (Centcom)\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p>The employment of the munitions, known as Coastal Defense Cruise Missiles, comes as the Iranian military has attacked ships in the strait, through which about 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil supply flows.<\/p>\n<p>Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, previously said the strait would remain closed off in response to the airstrikes by the U.S. and Israel, a joint operation that kicked off on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n<p>Since the war began, gas prices have gone up in the U.S. and around the world due to disruptions in oil markets.<\/p>\n<p>Iran\u2019s ability to launch low-cost drones, lay sea mines and fire anti-ship cruise missiles are some of the reasons why\u00a0U.S. allies in Europe\u00a0and elsewhere are\u00a0hesitant\u00a0to attempt to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an Iran hawk and a close ally of President Trump,\u00a0hammered\u00a0European allies over their reluctance to send military assets to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, threatening \u201cwide and deep\u201d repercussions for alliances.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said Wednesday morning that wonders what would happen if the U.S. military \u201cfinished off what is \u201cleft of the Iranian Terror State and let the Countries that use it, we don\u2019t, be responsible for the so called \u201cStrait?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat would get some of our non-responsive \u2018Allies\u2019 in gear, and fast,\u201d the president wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n<p>The bombs used were GBU-72 Advanced Penetrators, an U.S. official told CNN, munitions that were utilized by U.S. aircraft in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe GBU-72 was developed to overcome hardened, deeply buried target challenges and designed for both fighter and bomber aircraft,\u201d the Air Force said in 2021.<\/p>\n<p><em>This story was updated at 10:01 a.m.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military dropped multiple 5,000-pound deep-penetrator bombs on \u201chardened\u201d Iranian anti-ship missile sites on Tuesday along the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2846,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844\/revisions\/2846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}