The US military has denied that its forces struck a civilian wheat storage facility in Iran on Tuesday, insisting that Iranian military targets were hit to degrade Tehran's ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East after the US reimposed a blockade of its ports and ships, as the two countries traded strikes for a fifth day and Donald Trump threatened to expand US strikes on Iran next week.
US launches new wave of strikes
The US blockade came into force early on Wednesday, prompting Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz and carry out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes on countries hosting US bases in the region. The US military said it has launched a new wave of strikes against Iran as the warring countries continue their back-and-forth attacks in the Middle East. US Central Command (Centcom) issued a statement announcing the strikes that took place during daylight hours, a departure from previous attacks which occurred only at night. Centcom said the strikes were “designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran vows decisive response
The Iranian army vowed a “decisive response” after seven personnel were reported killed in a US attack on an Iranian military base. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported a number of personnel were also wounded in the incident at the base in Bampur in south-eastern Iran. More than 30 people have been killed in southern Iran in US attacks in recent days, said government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani. Iran’s health ministry said more than 260 people have been injured across the country in the latest wave of US strikes.
Regional fallout and Israeli strikes
Israeli airstrikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said Wednesday, as strikes continue almost daily despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas. On Wednesday, three members of a family were killed in central Gaza, Al Aqsa Hospital officials said. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, travelled to Doha on Wednesday to attend the funeral of former Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Iran’s ISNA reported, days after Iran attacked Qatar. Iran has attacked what it says are US targets in Qatar – a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the Iran war – most recently on Sunday when the death of the former emir was announced.
Diplomatic progress and regional tensions
Lebanon and Israel concluded US-brokered talks in Rome on Wednesday, with a US official saying they had made progress on implementing a plan that could see Israeli forces begin to withdraw from some parts of southern Lebanon within days. The two longtime foes held ambassador-level talks at the US embassy in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday - their sixth round of face-to-face negotiations since a new war erupted on 2 March between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, triggered by the wider regional conflict. Sirens rang out in Bahrain, while Kuwait and Jordan reported intercepting drones and missiles fired from Iran. The Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that Tehran forces launched a drone attack on a military base in Jordan that hosts US warplanes, while the IRGC claimed to have hit American facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait. US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to state media. It was the second day in a row that the city has come under attack, according to IRNA.
