- Iran says it targeted US sites in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.
- US strikes kill 14 and injure 78, say Iranian officials.
- Trump says he does not expect strikes to lead to full-scale war.
DUBAI: Iranian armed forces launched attacks on US military infrastructure in Gulf states on Thursday following US strikes on Iran’s southern coastal and eastern provinces, putting further strain on a three-week-old ceasefire agreement.
Iranian media later reported multiple explosions across southern Iran, including Bushehr, where one of Iran’s nuclear plants is located, along with Konarak, Choghadak and Bandar Abbas. The US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports.
The developments came on the day that Iran buried its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a shrine in Mashhad, the culmination of a week of mass funeral processions and rallies.
Khamenei was killed in a US airstrike on the first day of the war on February 28, as part of a US-Israeli barrage against the nation that set off a months-long conflict that has killed thousands and throttled worldwide energy supplies. Attacks on Qatari and Saudi shipping vessels earlier this week upended the fragile ceasefire, with US President Donald Trump declaring the truce “over.”
Khamenei’s funeral procession reached the country’s holiest shrine for his burial with a huge crowd packing the courtyard, some bearing banners denouncing the US president and reading, “We Will Kill Trump.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said the US attacks and intervention in redirecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz were disrupting the waterway’s slow reopening.
The Guards said the number of vessels transiting the strait under Iranian supervision had recovered to about 50% of pre-war levels over the past two weeks, adding that permission was being granted only to ships using routes designated by Tehran.
Any further US intervention will draw a “crushing response”, the Guards said.
The US military said on Wednesday that its latest strikes were aimed at keeping the Strait open after it said Iranian forces had struck three tankers in the area. The US assault came hours after Trump said he believed the interim ceasefire was over.
While Iran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, analysts say Tehran uses such actions to gain leverage in negotiations.
Oil prices, which had spiked due to concerns that the renewed attacks would disrupt shipping and global supplies, fell back on Thursday as investors considered the possibility that the flare-up was temporary, or might augur a complete collapse in the ceasefire.
Iranian officials said the US attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on July 8 and 9, state media reported. The Fars news agency said one US strike had hit a rail bridge used for trade with Russia and China.
Several explosions were heard on Thursday morning in Iran’s Bushehr province and in Bandar Abbas, a port city on Iran’s south coast, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Bushehr is home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant and a local official later told state media that a US projectile had hit the perimeter area of the facility. The perimeter had already been hit several times before an April 8 ceasefire.
Targeting US bases in Gulf states and Jordan
Iran’s army said in a statement released by state media that it had launched attacks at US Patriot systems in Kuwait, an early-warning site in Qatar and a US Army fuel depot in Bahrain.
Kuwait said its armed forces had engaged with a cruise missile, three ballistic missiles and 10 drones in its airspace, and that one person had been injured from falling shrapnel.
Sirens also sounded in Jordan after missiles launched from Iran were detected, the state news agency reported. Eight were intercepted, with no injuries or damage reported.
The Revolutionary Guards later said Iran had fired 10 ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Azraq military base, which is used by US forces, and also a US military control centre in the Middle East, without elaborating.
Qatar, which hosts the largest US base in the region and has often mediated between Washington and its adversaries including Tehran, condemned attacks on commercial shipping but also called for a return to diplomacy.
The foreign ministers of Turkey and Oman also stressed the need to avoid further military escalation in separate calls with their Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araqchi.
In a call with the army chief of Pakistan, which has also mediated in the conflict, Araqchi condemned what he called US “warmongering policies”.
The Strait of Hormuz handled about a fifth of global oil supplies before the war. Tehran has since largely taken control of the strait, allowing it to force a stalemate in its confrontation with the world’s most powerful military.
“The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened only under Iranian arrangements, not through US threats,” Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on X.
Trump does not expect return to full-fledged war
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday its forces had struck approximately 90 Iranian military targets, including air defence systems, coastal surveillance assets, and missile and drone storage sites.
“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
However, the US leader, who was attending a NATO summit in Turkey, also said he did not think the latest military strikes would escalate into a full-fledged conflict with Iran.
“Anything that happens is going to be over very quickly … and will only make it safer, including for oil,” he told reporters in Ankara.
Asked before the NATO summit on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding with Iran was over, Trump said: “It’s a very interesting question. To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them.”
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