US military says it is carrying out fresh strikes on Iran, after Trump says accord is ‘over’

The U.S. military said it was launching fresh strikes on Iran aimed at keeping the critical Strait of Hormuz open to traffic, hours after President Donald Trump declared that an interim agreement to end the war was “over.” The latest round of attacks, which the United States said was launched in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast and left some areas without power. “U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s Middle East command, wrote on X. “The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.” Wednesday’s strikes against Iran will be greater in number than the ones carried out on Tuesday, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “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. Control of the strait, through which a fifth of global oil supplies passed before the war began with U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28, has given Tehran immense leverage, effectively allowing it to force a stalemate with the world’s most powerful military. While Iran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, analysts say Tehran uses such actions to gain leverage in negotiations. Nournews, affiliated with Iran’s top security body, cited a military source as saying Tehran would soon launch a “massive attack” on U.S. bases in the region, a threat echoed by a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. “The aggressor enemy and its accomplices will be severely punished,” Mohsen Rezaei wrote on X. The latest escalation dented hopes of turning a memorandum of understanding signed on June 17 into a permanent deal to end the war. Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to earlier U.S. strikes on infrastructure, themselves retaliation for the ship attacks. Asked before a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding 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.” “If we make a deal with ran I’m not sure that will stick,” Trump later said. “I found them to be very dishonourable people.” But Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to escalate military action before backing off, said he did not expect a return to full-fledged war, and that it was not clear whether the negotiations on reaching a permanent deal would continue. Also on Wednesday, Trump said he did not think the war would restart: “Anything that happens is going to be over very quickly … and will only make it safer, including for oil.” Wednesday’s attacks pushed oil prices up more than $1 a barrel in post-settlement trading on Wednesday, with Brent crude futures LCOc1 last at $79.28 a barrel. Even so, prices remained well below the late-April peak of more than $120 a barrel. MAJOR IRAN PORT CITY HIT BY STRIKES Iranian media reported strikes primarily along Iran’s southern coast, from the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman. Among the locations hit were Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s largest port and key navy and Revolutionary Guards facilities on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as Konarak and Chabahar, neighbouring coastal cities near Iran’s border with Pakistan. Electricity had been restored to most areas of Chabahar after strikes knocked out power for some in the city, Mehr news agency reported, citing the local utility. Media also reported that a maritime traffic control tower in Chabahar was hit. A firefighter was killed in a strike on the airport in the southeastern city of Iranshahr, state media reported. In northern Iran, a U.S. attack hit a railway bridge near the town of Aqqala, according to Press TV. Prior to the fresh U.S. attacks on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei had said U.S. strikes had violated the memorandum by challenging a clause that “emphasizes the Islamic Republic of Iran’s responsibility in determining arrangements for the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz”. A spokesperson for parliament’s National Security Commission had said options for retaliation included withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), changing Iran’s nuclear doctrine, and closing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, another crucial global shipping route. In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, Iran’s mission at the UN accused the United States of “blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and its international obligations” and said its attacks violated the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries.