The United States has launched several waves of strikes on Iran over an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left a crew member missing over the weekend. Iran retaliated by targeting countries across the Middle East.
Missile alert sirens sounded at dawn Monday in Bahrain, home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.
Iranian state media acknowledged the latest attacks on its soil early Monday, describing explosions in several locations with at least one person being killed.
Iranian attacks on Sunday stretched Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman — whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. The narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, where once a fifth of all oil and natural gas passed through, has become the key issue challenging an interim deal between the US and Iran.
Iran and the US are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of that deal, which was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war could resume.
“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
Iran says the strait is closed – the US disagrees
The US military’s Central Command said earlier Monday that it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites. It said the attacks, heavier than in recent days, would weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping.
"We bombed the hell out of them last night," US President Donald Trump told NBC's Meet the Press.
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting US military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.
"The era of one-sided deals is OVER," Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. "We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking."
The US has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
The US military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said it was closed until calm is restored, and Tehran would consider targeting "additional enemy bases in the region" if it faced more attacks.
The US military said over 140 ships had transited the strait over the past week. A multinational body overseen by the US Navy said traffic continued "at reduced levels" off both Oman and Iran. It said nearly 140 vessels transited daily before the war.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Oman summons Iranian envoy to protest attack
Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries.
Qatar's military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a child, were wounded as a result of shrapnel from the interception of Iranian attacks, Qatar's Interior Ministry said, giving no further details on their condition.
Missile alerts sounded in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet.
Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said three “land border posts” in the north and an offshore drilling platform of the Kuwait Oil Company were damaged, with one platform worker wounded.
A day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait, the Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area on the waterway.
Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran's acts “irresponsible".
Three Iranian missiles struck areas across Jordan, causing minor damage but no injuries, Jordan's state news agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in the UAE, but the government said missiles did not cross into its territory.
Iranian strike on ship harms Indian crew
A Cyprus-flagged container ship was hit by Iran and suffered "significant engine room damage," the US Central Command said.
Oman's maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members but one was missing. India’s Ministry of External Affairs called him an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been moving along Oman's shoreline.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said multiple vessels "disregarded our warnings" and ignored instructions to follow what it called an approved route. One "was struck by a warning shot and brought to a stop."
Iranian state media later reported US strikes across the country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.
Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait
The strait sits in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Oman on Saturday said it and Iran agreed to continue discussing the strait "at the technical and political levels".
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was "over". But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach an agreement. A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran's top diplomat and urged "de-escalation" on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on February 28.
Such revenge "is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on state television.
SHARE ME