The US and Iran traded strikes overnight on Saturday into Sunday, escalating tensions in the Middle East and imperilling an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz struck less than two weeks ago.
US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said it conducted “strikes against multiple targets” for a second day late on Saturday after Iran attacked vessels travelling through the strait.
The latest exchange of strikes threatened to undermine a memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran on June 17 under which Tehran agreed to reopen the strategic waterway and allow traffic to gradually return to prewar levels.
Both the US and Iran have accused the other of violating the agreement, which extended an April 8 ceasefire for 60 days in order to ease the global energy crisis and allow time for further talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Tensions escalated in recent days when Iran fired at a ship and warned vessels not to use what it described as unauthorised routes through the strait.
A diplomat said Iran has been frustrated that Oman — whose territorial waters flow through the waterway — has opened up a lane for ships to transit the strait, which has reduced Tehran’s control of the chokepoint.
Mediators were talking to the warring parties in a bid to de-escalate and keep the diplomatic process on track, the diplomat added.
The US launched the strikes “in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”, Centcom said. It said the strikes targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defence sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities.
“United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.
Reopening the strait — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally passes — is a priority for the US president ahead of midterm elections in November.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps hit back within hours, saying in a statement early on Sunday that it had carried out missile and drone strikes targeting eight US military installations in Kuwait and the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
Kuwait’s military said that its air defences were responding to missile and drone attacks. Bahrain’s foreign ministry condemned the “renewed Iranian aggression”, which it said was a “dangerous escalation”.
As part of the deal, Trump also said the US would lift a naval blockade on Iranian ports and release some of Iran’s frozen funds held overseas.
“It is very possible that they will never learn!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
The guards warned that further violations of the ceasefire would bring talks to a standstill, adding that “future enemy aggressions . . . will be met with overwhelming force” and “any offending ships will now face even harsher action”.
The latest US attacks against Iran began on Friday in response to an Iranian drone offensive on the Singapore-flagged container ship Ever Lovely.
Iran has said that only its designated shipping route through the strait is considered safe, warning that any vessels using alternative routes would be regarded as operating in dangerous waters and in violation of the agreement.
In a statement, Centcom said Iran had been “given a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement”, but had “elected not to” by attacking another commercial vessel, the Panama-flagged tanker Kiku, in the early hours of Saturday. Centcom said the vessel was passing near the Strait of Hormuz with more than 2mn barrels of crude oil.
UK Maritime Trade Operations said earlier in the day that the vessel had sustained damage to its bridge after being hit by an “unidentified projectile”.
The renewed hostilities came after Lebanese and Israeli officials signed a framework deal with the US in Washington on Friday following four days of talks aimed at ending the war in Lebanon and disarming Hizbollah, the Tehran-backed militant group.
Iranian officials have linked the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon, which has not been party to the talks, to its ceasefire deal with the US.
The agreement lays out a pathway for the Israeli military’s gradual withdrawal from a “security zone” stretching 10km into south Lebanon, beginning with two “pilot” areas where the Lebanese Armed Forces will be deployed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Saturday that his forces would remain in the security zone “for as long as it is required for our security” and that troops stationed there had the right to respond with force to any perceived threat.
Both Trump and US vice-president JD Vance have previously criticised Netanyahu for continuing strikes against Lebanon while Washington attempted to broker a deal with Tehran.
The Israel Defense Forces carried out strikes over the weekend. In a statement on Sunday it said that it had targeted Hizbollah fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and a launch site in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, adding in a later statement that it had carried out strikes on Saturday against “armed terrorists” in a separate “security zone” in southern Syria.
French shipping group CMA CGM said on Sunday that another of its container ships, the Galápagos, had managed to sail out of Hormuz earlier in the day, its first known crossing since the interim deal was agreed. It did not detail how the ship had exited.
Additional reporting by Sarah White
