Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has launched joint missile and drone strikes targeting United States military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, deepening a fresh exchange of fire between Washington and Tehran that has thrown the fragile ceasefire between the two countries into serious doubt.
The IRGC said its navy and aerospace forces conducted the joint operations in response to recent US strikes against Iran, with Iranian state television describing the attacks as “a decisive response” after US forces struck a communications tower in the port city of Sirik.
Iran’s Mehr news agency said the Iranian port was operating normally with no damage reported to facilities or equipment.
The US military’s Central Command confirmed it had launched overnight strikes hitting Iranian missile and drone locations and coastal radar sites, itself a response to an Iranian drone attack on a container ship attempting to leave the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday.
The back-and-forth exchanges have set off alarm bells about the stability of the interim ceasefire agreement the two countries signed earlier this month.
Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said the US had violated the war-ending memorandum of understanding by supporting what he described as proxy forces in the region and creating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran has also threatened that peace negotiations could collapse entirely if Washington continues its military actions.
At the heart of the dispute is control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas.
A multinational maritime body overseen by the US Navy announced on Saturday that it would expand a shipping route near Oman to allow both inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran, which insists it alone must govern the strait after the war.
The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite it lying within Iranian and Omani territorial waters.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on Friday halted a new effort to evacuate ships and said it would not resume until there were guarantees that vessels would not be attacked.
About 115 ships have been able to move out of the strait in recent days.
US Vice President JD Vance, who has led Washington’s negotiations with Tehran, said the United States had honoured the ceasefire agreement and warned Iran it was responsible for any return to full conflict.
“Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honoured it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,” Vance wrote on X.
Trump, writing on Truth Social, also issued a stark warning to Tehran. “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.”
Hundreds of ships, including oil tankers, have been blockaded inside the Gulf since the war broke out.
The US and Iran are still negotiating terms of a final deal, including the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and arrangements for ships to freely transit the strait.
(The Whistler)