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

The U.S. struck again later Sunday. 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 U.S. official said a few strikes targeted missile and air defense systems and paramilitary Revolutionary Guard boats. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss military operations.

Iran and the U.S. 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 António Guterres said, according to a statement.

Iran says the strait is closed but the US disagrees

The U.S. military earlier Sunday said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites.

The attacks were heavier than in recent days. The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the past week over attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.

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

Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. 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,” 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.”

Iran said the strait was closed until calm is restored, and Tehran would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks. The U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open.

The U.S. military said over 140 ships had transited over the past week. A multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy said traffic continued “at reduced levels” off both Oman and Iran, and that 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. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

Oman summons Iranian envoy to protest attack

Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries.

Qatar’s military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a child, were wounded by shrapnel from the interception of attacks, Qatar’s Interior Ministry said.

Missile alerts sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Kuwait’s Defense Ministry said three “land border posts” in the north and an offshore drilling platform of the Kuwait Oil Company were damaged, with one worker wounded.

Three Iranian missiles struck areas across Jordan, causing minor damage but no injuries, Jordan’s state news agency reported.

And the Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area on the waterway, a day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait and agreed to continue discussions. The strait sits in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran’s acts “irresponsible.”

Iranian strike on ship harms Indian crew

The Cyprus-flagged container ship hit by Iran on Saturday suffered “significant engine room damage,” the U.S. military said.

Oman’s maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members but one was missing. India’s foreign ministry called him an Indian national.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been moving along Oman’s shoreline.

Iran’s 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 U.S. strikes across the country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.

Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait

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 mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss talks, 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 in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.

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Weissert and Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Jon Gambrell, Will Weissert And Konstantin Toropin, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

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

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