The threat to a precarious ceasefire came as the United States<\/a> said there was a \u201clane of safe passage\u201d for commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> and warned Iran against further attacks in the strategic waterway.<\/p>\n Speaking a day after the US began \u201cProject Freedom\u201d, defence secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> said the four-week-old ceasefire with Iran is not over but warned that renewed attacks on shipping would trigger a forceful response. <\/p>\n \u201cIran will face overwhelming firepower if it attacks commercial shipping,\u201d he said, adding that Washington is not seeking confrontation but is maintaining a temporary security mission to protect maritime traffic. <\/p>\n He stressed that the operation to break Iran\u2019s blockade of the shipping channel is separate from the broader war against Tehran, but said American forces remain \u201clocked and loaded\u201d if Iranian attacks on ships persist.<\/p>\n The US military said it had destroyed six Iranian small boats, \u200cas well as cruise missiles and drones, after the navy was sent the navy to escort stranded tankers.<\/p>\n Iran fired missiles at US ships on Monday and attacked the UAE, a key regional ally of Washington, with missiles and drones. Shortly after Hegseth spoke on Tuesday, the UAE\u2019s \u200bdefence ministry said its air defences were again dealing Iranian attacks. <\/p>\n The UAE\u2019s foreign ministry said the attacks posed a direct threat to \u200bthe country\u2019s security. It said the UAE reserved its \u201cfull and legitimate right\u201d to respond.<\/p>\n Late on Tuesday night, UAE president \u200bsheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received calls \u200bfrom regional leaders, including Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, condemning \u200cwhat \u200cthey \u200bdescribed as Iranian attacks \u2060on \u200bcivilians and civilian \u200bfacilities in the \u200cUAE, the state \u200bnews agency WAM said on \u2060Wednesday.<\/p>\n The \u2060leaders \u201caffirmed \u200btheir countries\u2019 solidarity with the UAE and support for measures it takes to \u200csafeguard its \u2060security and stability and ensure the safety \u200cof its citizens,\u201d WAM \u200badded.<\/p>\n The narrow Strait of Hormuz has been virtually shut by Tehran since the US and Israel<\/a> began attacks on Iran on February 28th, triggering disruptions that have pushed up commodity prices \u200baround the world.<\/p>\n Speaking about the crisis at the White House, Trump<\/a> said Iran should \u201cwave the white flag of surrender\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump has said the US-Israeli attacks in February aimed to eliminate what he called imminent threats from Iran, citing its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and its support for Iran-backed regional militants Hamas<\/a> and Hizbullah<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIran never had a chance,\u201d he said on Tuesday. \u201cWe cannot allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons. You can\u2019t let a bunch of lunatics hold nuclear weapons, or the world will be in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that US actions are jeopardising the security of shipping and marked a violation of the ceasefire.<\/p>\n But even as the conflict intensified, the sides reportedly continue to exchange proposals to resolve the crisis.<\/p>\n Iran is insisting, in public at least, on separating negotiations over freedom of navigation in the Gulf from other core issues, such as uranium enrichment on its soil, the removal of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, its ballistic missile programme and its support for regional proxies Hamas and Hizbullah.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, US intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon using enriched uranium has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a US-Israeli attack had delayed its capabilities by up to a year. <\/p>\n The UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been unable to verify the whereabouts of some 440kg of Iranian uranium which has been enriched to 60 per cent.<\/p>\n Nuclear weapons usually require a uranium enrichment of 90 per cent. <\/p>\n The IAEA believes that about half of the uranium was stored in an underground tunnel complex at Isfahan, but it has been unable to confirm that since inspections were suspended by Iran. \u2013 Additional reporting: Reuters\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump said late on Tuesday night he would pause a US-led effort to help stranded ships exit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[6222,9,10,356,18,13,14,69,6,21029,19,59104,18929,17,71,45036,11,12,15,16,5,51692,168834,7,8,389,384],"class_list":["post-470338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-donald-trump","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-hizbullah","tag-ie","tag-international-atomic-energy-agency","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116524694031504078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Container](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EJSHB6JFZGSFLLOWJ4XCU3FBXM.jpg\")
Container ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Photograph: Amirhosein Khorgooi\/ISNA via AP <\/p>\n