Operation True Promise IV is Iran’s designation for its retaliatory operations following the U.S.-Israeli strikes of 28 February 2026. The name continues the “True Promise” sequence from prior Iranian retaliatory operations against Israel, asserting continuity with previous rounds of escalation.
The operation encompassed ballistic missile and drone attacks against U.S. military installations in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE; strikes on civilian airports and shipping ports across the Gulf; the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping; and attacks on energy infrastructure, including strikes on Qatar’s LNG facilities. The multi-domain, multi-theater character of the response — striking across the entire Persian Gulf rather than concentrating on the adversary’s military assets — reflects an asymmetric escalation strategy that targets the coalition’s political cohesion by imposing costs on regional states hosting U.S. forces.
From an intelligence perspective, the breadth and simultaneity of the response raise questions about the extent to which the strike campaign degraded Iran’s retaliatory capability. The prewar intelligence assessment presumably included estimates of Iran’s residual strike capacity after the initial waves — the gap between those estimates and the actual response is itself an intelligence assessment problem that will inform post-conflict analysis.
Related terms
- Operation Epic Fury — the U.S. strikes that prompted this response
- Operation Roaring Lion — the Israeli strikes that prompted this response
- Strait of Hormuz closure — the economic warfare component of Iran’s response