The USA attacked Iran early Sunday over an Iranian strike on a container ship within the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one crew member missing. Iran responded with attacks targeting several countries within the Middle East, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the country on the opposite side of the strait that Tehran wants to affix it in managing traffic there.
The fighting raised recent questions on the interim deal Iran and the U.S. reached on June 17, starting a 60-day period geared toward reaching a everlasting end to the war. The midway point of that period comes inside the week.
The strait, a key route for the worldwide supply of oil and natural gas, has grow to be the important thing sticking point in negotiations, and fighting over the past week has left negotiations at risk of collapse.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets in Sunday’s strikes 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,” 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 within the region hosting U.S. 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 foremost negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the value. Reality is knocking.”
The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran within the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, looking for to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
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A couple of fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a worldwide energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
The U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said the strait was closed until calm is restored, and it could consider targeting “additional enemy bases within the region” if it faced more attacks.
Oman summons Iranian envoy to protest attack
Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries early Sunday.
Qatar’s military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard within the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a toddler, were wounded in consequence 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 within the Persian Gulf home to the U.S. Navy’s fifth Fleet. Kuwait’s military also said it was intercepting incoming fire.
The Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area that sits on the Strait of Hormuz and issued a shelter-in-place warning for residents within the region. The attack got here a day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait.
Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the primary such move because 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 within the UAE, but the federal government said missiles didn’t 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 U.S. Central Command said.
Oman’s maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members but one was missing. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the missing man is an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been hugging 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 dropped at a stop.”
Iranian state media later reported U.S. strikes across the country, including southern Iran within the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.
Attacks followed more diplomatic talks in regards to the strait
The strait sits in each Iran and Oman’s territorial waters but has long been considered a global waterway.
Oman on Saturday said it and Iran agreed to proceed discussing the strait “on the technical and political levels.” Iran offered no statement in regards to the strait being open to all, something sought by the Trump administration.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal within the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to succeed in an agreement. A regional official involved within the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to debate those talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday.
Iran’s recent supreme leader, still unseen because the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement because the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing within the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the desire of our nation and must definitely be carried out,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a press release carried on state television.