The US military carried out strikes against Iranian targets after President Donald Trump accused Iran of “senseless violation” of its truce following an attack on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command said it struck missile and drone storage facilities as well as coastal radar positions on Friday, in response to a drone attack on a cargo ship Thursday that disrupted the planned evacuation of sailors stuck in the area.
Tehran said the cargo ship was attacked because it was using an unauthorized route to transit the Gulf waterway.
After the US strikes, Iran in turn accused the United States of violating its interim agreement and said it had struck targets linked to US forces.
US Central Command – or Centcom – described the US strikes as “a powerful response” to the drone attack the day before.
“The unjustified aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” he said in a statement.
“Furthermore, Iran’s dangerous behavior has undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly moves through the vital international trade corridor.”
Centcom said the U.S. military would “continue to coordinate safe passage and support commercial vessels transiting the strait.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Saturday morning, saying the country had carried out strikes against targets linked to U.S. forces in response, and blaming the situation on the “treaty-violating U.S. regime.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its navy had struck U.S. military positions in the region, without providing further details. The BBC has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
“If the aggression is repeated, our response will be more extensive than that,” the IRGC added.
Tehran effectively closed the strait after US and Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.
The closure of the waterway critical to oil and gas shipments has caused global oil prices to soar and throttled shipments of other essential products such as fertilizer.
The United States and Iran agreed on June 17 to end hostilities under a 14-point memorandum of understanding, which also called on Iran to use “all efforts to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels, free of charge, for 60 days.”
In an article on
“But violence will be accompanied by violence,” he added.
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee, however, declared on social media that the United States had “once again attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations.”
He continued in his social media post: “This reckless violation of the ceasefire will, as always, result in pushback and regret on their part. The blame game no longer works. »
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon, Trump refused to be drawn into questions about how the United States might respond to the drone attack, or whether he considered the ceasefire still intact.
“You’ll find out,” he said. “I don’t like the fact that they shot yesterday. They shouldn’t do that.”
When asked why he thought Iran would carry out such an operation, Trump simply replied that “they’re a little different.”
In recent days, Trump and other U.S. officials have insisted that negotiations with Iran are progressing well, saying Iran has dropped any suggestion of tolls for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
In an article published Wednesday by Truth Social, Trump said Iran had informed the United States that there would be “no tolls, no insurance fees, and no other charges of any kind would be requested or received.”
“If this is false information, negotiations will end immediately,” he added.
United States condemned reports that Iran charges fees to oil tankers crossing the strait, and many consider any toll system to be a violation of international maritime law.
On Tuesday, Iranian and Omani officials held talks in Oman’s capital Muscat to discuss “the future management of navigation”, although Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi said the two countries were committed to “safe and cost-free passage”.
However, Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, told state-affiliated media that “everyone should know that the administration of the Strait of Hormuz will never return to what it was before the war.”
The cargo ship hit by a projectile on Thursday was the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship.
According to the British maritime safety agency UKMTO, the ship was struck 7.5 nautical miles southeast of the port of Dahit in Oman.
The Ever Lovely was following the UKMTO’s recommended route through the strait when it was struck, the ship’s owner Evergreen said.
“All crew members remain safe, as does the ship itself and all cargo,” the statement added.
In response, the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) suspended the planned evacuation of more than 11,000 sailors stranded in this key shipping lane since the start of the war.