US, Iran ceasefire unravels
The US reimposed a naval blockade on Iran and intensified its airstrike campaign on Wednesday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The American strikes hit an Iranian army barracks, killing at least seven troops and wounding more than 260 people across the country, Iranian officials said.
Days of back-and-forth strikes by the US and Iran across the Middle East - and renewed threats to the waterway crucial to global energy supplies - have shredded the interim deal to end the conflict, and the region could tip back into all-out war.
The US first imposed a blockade in April and then lifted it last month after signing the interim deal that paused the fighting and set a 60-day period for negotiations over issues such as Iran’s nuclear program. Those talks have stalled as fighting over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified.
When the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the waterway to shipping traffic - a move that sent the price of oil, fertiliser, and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations. Those rising prices pose a particular challenge to US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Congress in elections in November. But Washington has struggled to successfully reopen the waterway.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened on Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade.
“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said.
The US carried out a wave of strikes, hitting dozens of targets overnight, the military’s Central Command said Wednesday, and then resumed striking Iran during daylight - an unusual move that further signalled the increasing tempo of the attacks.
Within 17 hours of reimposing the blockade on Iranian ports, Central Command said US forces had “redirected” two commercial vessels attempting to run the blockade.
“The US military remains vigilant and prepared to ensure full compliance,” it said on social media.
Among the US military’s targets was Greater Tunb Island, which is viewed as a strategic point in the Strait of Hormuz. Central Command said the attack targeted Iranian defence and missile sites.
Iran took control of three islands - Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb - from what would become the United Arab Emirates in 1971. The UAE has sought to reclaim them.
Some analysts have suggested that if the US seized the islands, it could allow it to control the strait.
Another strike targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanised Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armoured vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said the Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and that the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.
Including those at the barracks, more than 30 people have been killed in recent days, Iranian Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said, without elaborating.
Hossein Kermanpour, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry, meanwhile, said over 260 people were wounded in overnight strikes alone - a figure far larger than for any other round of recent violence between Iran and the US. He did not say how many people were killed overnight.
The army said it would make “a decisive response to this aggressive action by the American enemy,” according to state TV.
Missile alert warnings sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait early Wednesday as they faced incoming Iranian fire - a daily occurrence in recent days. Jordan said it shot down three incoming Iranian missiles. Iran claimed attacks on the three nations, all of which host US forces.
US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads Central Command, said in a statement that Iran had launched dozens of missiles and drones at neighbouring Gulf Arab countries.
Trump told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday night that more US strikes against Iran would come over the next two days and that bridges and power plants could be targeted by next week unless negotiations resume. Already, the US has struck at least one bridge.
“You’d better make a deal, or you’re not going to have anything left,” Trump warned.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, criticised America’s attacks.
“The US is the aggressor, not the victim,” he wrote to the world body’s leader, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
The latest round of fighting is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas trade passes during peacetime. How to reopen the strait has bedevilled the US since Iran choked it off in the early days of the war.
