# CENTCOM United States Central Command is the geographic combatant command responsible for the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, about 21 countries. It is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. It is the operational headquarters for the [[Iran War 2026]] and ran the 2025 Yemen air campaign against the [[Houthis]] (Operation Rough Rider). ## Leadership Navy **Adm. Brad Cooper** took command on **August 8, 2025**, succeeding Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, who had led CENTCOM since April 2022. Cooper had been CENTCOM's deputy commander. [[Donald Trump]] nominated him on June 4, 2025, and he is only the second admiral to lead the command, after William Fallon in 2007. Under Kurilla the command ran Operation Rough Rider and Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Cooper inherited the Iran file and eight months later was running a war. The chain above him runs through Secretary [[Pete Hegseth]] ([[Department of War]]) and, for military advice, Joint Chiefs Chairman [[Dan Caine]]. ## The Iran war and the blockade CENTCOM executed Operation Epic Fury, the February 28, 2026 opening strikes that killed [[Ali Khamenei]]. After the April ceasefire it became the enforcer of a **naval blockade of Iranian ports**, announced by Cooper and in effect from **April 13 to June 18, 2026**. CENTCOM reported turning away 94 vessels by May 22, though Lloyd's List documented at least 26 that slipped through. The blockade was lifted under the [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]]. It did not stay lifted. After Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the [[Strait of Hormuz]] and the U.S. resumption of strikes on July 7, CENTCOM announced in mid-July that enforcement would resume. Ships bound to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas were again subject to interdiction. Trump said Iran "breached the agreement first," and Tehran declared it would halt its own MOU obligations. By **September 1, 2026**, CENTCOM reported 84 vessels redirected, three disabled and two boarded under the renewed blockade. It also reported "a limited and precise action" against IRGC mine-laying forces in the strait. CENTCOM's own resource limits became a policy story. In the July 24 deliberations that paused the renewed strikes, Caine warned that further major combat would "dangerously deplete" the Patriot interceptors available to the command (see [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]]). ## Civilian-harm accounting The command's civilian-harm mitigation function is a live accountability story. Its civilian-harm team has been cut from ten personnel to one under [[Pete Hegseth]], leaving fifteen Yemen cases unadjudicated as of August 2026. Meanwhile CENTCOM maintains that one incident, the strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran, is the only civilian-harm investigation arising from 13,629 munitions expended in the Iran war. *The Intercept* called the related Pentagon report a "total whitewash." The late-July recategorization of U.S. casualties into a new "Overseas Operations" tally is covered on [[Iran War 2026]]. ## Related - [[Iran War 2026]] · [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]] · [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]] - [[Strait of Hormuz]] · [[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]] · [[Houthis]] - [[Pete Hegseth]] · [[Dan Caine]] · [[War Powers Decision Flow]]