The United States launched a second night of attacks on Iran on Sunday evening despite a fragile peace agreement, as tensions over the Strait of Hormuz flared.
Each country is trying to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that has become a flashpoint in the conflict.
The US aerial bombardment continued into Monday morning, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war. The US and Iran are near the halfway mark of a 60-day window to negotiate a deal.
US Central Command described its forces as hitting 140 sites, including air defence, radar and missile systems, as well as drone capabilities and small boats.
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,” it said.
“Iran does not control it.”
Iranian state media reported that the strikes killed one person in southwestern Iran, while four were injured.
Following the overnight strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it attacked several bases linked to the US in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
The escalating attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship on Sunday in the strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway through which 20 per cent of the world’s traded crude oil and natural gas passes remains a key issue in negotiations.
Since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, shipping through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf has been severely disrupted.
Iran maintained a chokehold on it by attacking commercial vessels around it and intimidating shippers.
At the end of April, Brent crude reached $120 a barrel.
Iran and US are nearly halfway through the 60-day interim deal signed in June that 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 that the conflict could resume.
Iran says it has closed the key waterway until further notice, while the US insists it is open.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard sharply rejected America’s claim saying: “The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it.”
In a statement, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said: “A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences.”
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” US President Donald Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press.
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,” main negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, wrote online.
“We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
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 a final agreement.
A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity, 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, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 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.
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