The US military launched further strikes on multiple targets in Iran on Sunday, a day after it struck Iran in retaliation for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated with a joint missile and drone operation targeting eight US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain.
US strikes in response to Iranian aggression
US Central Command (Centcom) said its strikes were in “direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping” and targeted Iran’s “military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities.” The strikes came after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday.
“Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,” Centcom said in a statement, adding the strikes were “in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.”
Iran retaliates against US sites
In retaliation, the IRGC said early on Sunday that it had launched a joint missile and drone operation targeting eight US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain. The IRGC vowed that any further aggression would be met with a “crushing response” and warned that violating the ceasefire would result “in the complete halt of all diplomatic processes.”
Both Bahrain and Kuwait denounced the Iranian attacks, although it wasn’t clear what, if anything, had been hit. A US official, confirming Iran’s attacks on the facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain, told Reuters there were no reported US casualties or major damage to US sites in the Middle East so far.
Ceasefire under threat
The flare-up in tensions comes as Washington and Tehran have been negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end an unpopular war that has sent global oil prices skyrocketing and resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. The exchanges underscored the fragility of a Pakistan-brokered peace process, with both sides accusing the other of violating an interim deal signed less than two weeks ago.
The text signed by the US and Iran said both countries, and their respective allies, were “not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other.”
Trump warns of tipping point
Posting on Truth Social on Saturday, Donald Trump warned of a tipping point. “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” he wrote. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist.”
Background of the conflict
The 14-point US-Iran interim agreement was meant to halt the fighting, which the US and Israel started on 28 February, and reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping while talks began on more deep-seated issues, such as Iran’s nuclear programme. The strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran had largely cut off for most of the conflict.
One round of mediated talks, led by Vice-President JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was held in Switzerland a week ago, and Washington then waived sanctions on Tehran. But the fighting and recriminations have since resumed and intensified.
