US launches more strikes on Iran as standoff over Strait of Hormuz escalates

The US launched several waves of strikes on Iran on Sunday over an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left a crew member missing the day before.

Iran responded with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to collaborate in managing shipping traffic.

The US military said it was seeking “to degrade” Iran’s “ability to attack commercial ships freely transiting” the critical strait.

The statement came after a third round of strikes late on Sunday night and into Monday in Iran.

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The first wave, on Sunday morning, came in response to an Iranian strike on a container ship in the critical waterway on Saturday.

Iran responded to those strikes by attacking Gulf Arab states in an escalating cycle of violence that left the negotiations between Tehran and Washington to end the war at the edge of collapse.

The US struck again later in the day.

The governor of Qeshm Island near the strait told Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency that projectiles were fired at military targets, with no casualties.

Explosions were also heard in the coastal city of Bandar Abbas and Hajiabad city to the north.

A US official said a few strikes were conducted on missile and air defence systems, as well as small boats of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard at a couple of locations around the strait to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping.

Iran and the US are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of their interim deal aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war.

The strait, a key route for the global supply of oil and natural gas and long considered an international waterway, has become a sticking point in negotiations that seem in danger of collapse.

“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said, according to a statement.

The US military’s central command said earlier on Sunday 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.

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“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” US President Donald Trump told NBC’s Meet The Press.

Semi-official 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 travelling 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 Mr Trump asserted that the strait remained open on Sunday.

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Iran said the strait was closed until calm is restored, and it would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks.

The US military said more than 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, although oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of 120 US dollars a barrel.

Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries early on Sunday.

Qatar’s military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighbouring 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 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 in the region.

The attack came a day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait.

Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest against 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.

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Sirens also sounded in the UAE, but the government said missiles did not cross into its territory.

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 said the missing man is an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre, overseen by the 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 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.

The strait sits in both Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

Oman said on Saturday that it and Iran had agreed to continue discussing the strait “at the technical and political levels”.

Iran offered no statement about the strait being open to all, something sought by the Trump administration.

Mr 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 the mediation said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued on Sunday.

Pakistan said its foreign minister had spoken by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since the war began, vowed on Saturday 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.