The U.S. military attacked Iran on Friday in response to an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, with each country accusing the other of violating terms of a ceasefire agreed on last week.<\/p>\n
U.S. Central Command said aircraft struck missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites, and a U.S. official reported the operation had concluded.Iran said a projectile struck the area around a pier in Sirik in southern Iran, and that Iranian naval forces responded by striking U.S. military targets in the region.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere there were signs of progress, however, as Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement to end the fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Both sides framed the deal as an initial step that calls for Hezbollah to disarm and Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon, but it was not clear how it would be enforced. Hezbollah said it would not cooperate.<\/p>\n
Tehran has said it would control the Strait of Hormuz and warned Gulf states not to side with Washington after Thursday\u2019s attack on a cargo ship traveling near Oman\u2019s coast. U.S. President Donald Trump blamed the attack on Iran and said it violated last week\u2019s agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,\u201d U.S. Central Command said in its statement announcing strikes, which it called \u201ca powerful response to yesterday\u2019s attack on a commercial ship that was transiting the Strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. military said it would continue to provide \u201csafe passage coordination and support\u201d to commercial vessels transiting the strait.<\/p>\n
\u2018Violence will be met with violence\u2019<\/p>\n
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, once seen as a skeptic on U.S. intervention in Iran but now a Trump administration point person on the conflict, said the Americans have honored the ceasefire deal, also known as a memorandum of understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored 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,\u201d Vance said on X.<\/p>\n
Iranian state media, citing an unnamed military source, reported the strike at the port of Sirik after an explosion was heard there. The source said several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward vessels that violated Strait of Hormuz regulations about five hours earlier, adding two warning missiles had also been launched from the nearby Karpan area toward the strategic waterway.<\/p>\n
The Revolutionary Guards said that in response its navy \u201cstruck the locations where the terrorist U.S. military is stationed in the region\u201d and warned that any further U.S. attacks would be met with a broader response, according to the statement carried on state media.<\/p>\n
The ceasefire agreement gives Iran control over ship traffic in the strait, the Guards said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the United States, by provoking various fronts, sought to violate this commitment, and the necessary response was given and will continue to be given. If the aggression is repeated, our response will be broader than this,\u201d the Revolutionary Guards said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. did not immediately respond to Iran\u2019s report of striking American targets, a tactic that has sought to undermine U.S. allies in the region during the conflict.<\/p>\n
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament\u2019s national security committee, said in response to the latest strikes that Trump has failed to show commitment to the principles of negotiation or ceasefire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis reckless violation of the ceasefire will, as always, lead to retreat and regret on their part,\u201d Azizi said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
Oil prices fall<\/p>\n
Before the renewed outbreak of violence, oil prices dropped by about 3% on Friday, on course for steep weekly losses, in response to oil tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies typically passes.<\/p>\n
Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf, the world\u2019s biggest oil port, after a nearly four-month halt, shipping data showed.<\/p>\n
Fertilizer shipments through the strait have also picked up, helping to assuage concerns about a spike in global food prices.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2014 wrapping up a tour of the Gulf to reassure regional allies about the interim pact \u2014 issued a joint statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council calling for \u201cfree, unconditional, and unrestricted navigation\u201d in the strait without tolls or \u201cattempts to assert control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign ministry said the strait should be governed by Iran and Oman, while Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran\u2019s supreme leader, warned Washington\u2019s Gulf allies their survival depended on Tehran\u2019s tolerance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. military attacked Iran on Friday in response to an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[34042,102,101],"class_list":["post-180122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-editors-picks","tag-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116821803918608309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}