AP
Dubai
The US launched strikes on Iran early Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate an American blockade of Iranian ports and charge ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran responded with attacks on Middle East allies of the US.
The latest exchange of fire leaves in tatters an interim deal meant to pause the fighting, reopen a waterway that is key to world energy supplies and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war. Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines. Unless a diplomatic solution is found quickly, it could intensify into all-out war.
The focus of the conflict now is the strait, through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime. Iran effectively shut the passage during the war by attacking and threatening ships – a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage. It sent the price of oil, fertiliser and other goods soaring at a time when world leaders were already struggling to address rising costs.
The interim deal was supposed to reopen the waterway, but Iran has attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the US military that is outside Tehran’s control.
The US has now threatened to reopen the strait by force – but experts say that will require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of American ground troops. It’s possible Trump will back down, as he has previously.
The US military’s Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting “coastal defence systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.
“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US military said.
Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.
Two of the ships were associated with the United Arab Emirates and were set ablaze for a time. The Emirati Defence Ministry said the attack on the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah killed one mariner and wounded others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate.
Dutch shipping firm Stolt Tankers said that one of its ships came under attack. The attack on the Stolt Magnesium off Oman sparked a fire in the engine room, but the company said all the mariners were safe.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah “ignored repeated warnings.” Iran has targeted ships that use a route through the strait that passes near Oman outside of its territorial waters.
Hours after the US said it ended its campaign of strikes, the Iranian city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was hit in at least four locations, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. It again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were attacking Iran in retaliation.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, sounded its missile alert sirens three times early Tuesday. Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles from Iran. Jordan hosts US forces and has come under attack by Tehran in recent days.
