The United States has launched fresh strikes against Iran after a drone attack targeted a Panama-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.
Early Sunday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” in response to Iran’s attack on the tanker.
CENTCOM posted to social media that they has conducted strikes on 10 Iranian military targets at “multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz”.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard then launched drone and missile attacks Sunday, targeting Bahrain and Kuwait, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.
Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas, without Iran’s direct oversight, has sparked the crossfire in the region.
A multinational maritime body, overseen by the US Navy, said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic.
Meanwhile, Iran says it should have sole control over the strait after the war, challenging the long-held view that the waterway is open to all countries, even though it lies within the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days.
The Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
In a social media post, Trump said the US had “struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!”
He warned of a point where the US may no longer be able to be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job.”
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The incident follows a similar back-and-forth that occurred just days prior, when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday, and the US military retaliated with strikes.
According to ship-tracking websites, the Kiku left a Qatari oil field in the middle of the Persian Gulf earlier in the week and was bound for a port in the United Arab Emirates that sits on the Gulf of Oman, just on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.
It appeared to be attempting to use a route established near the coast of Oman, serving as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran that runs through its own waters.
The US military said that “Iran had a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement” but “elected not to” when its forces attacked the Kiku.
After the US strikes early Sunday, Kuwait’s military said air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles. It offered no immediate information on any damage. Kuwait is home to a major US Army base.
Meanwhile, Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression against the sovereignty of the kingdom, and the security of its citizens and residents.”
Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base there came under repeated attack during the war.
The Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying it targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait.
“Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire … will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes,” the Guard added.
The Guard, which controls Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and is thought to be wielding even greater influence now in the Islamic Republic.
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