{"id":929467,"date":"2026-07-12T08:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T08:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929467\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T08:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T08:03:12","slug":"us-launches-airstrikes-on-iran-tehran-lashes-out-at-gulf-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929467\/","title":{"rendered":"US launches airstrikes on Iran; Tehran lashes out at Gulf states"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The United States attacked Iran<\/a> early Sunday morning over an Iranian strike on a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz that set the container ship ablaze and forced its crew to abandon it. Iran apparently responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. <\/p>\n

The strait has become the key sticking point in any further negotiations between Iran and the United States to reach a permanent end to the war that began on Feb. 28. About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran\u2019s grip on it during the war led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped<\/a> since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military\u2019s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets in the strikes, far more than the last two rounds, and went after missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites.<\/p>\n

The attacks \u201cdegrade Iran\u2019s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial vessels freely transiting the strait,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

The new crossfire in the Persian Gulf comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> suggested an interim deal in the Iran war was \u201cover.\u201d <\/p>\n

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote online: \u201cIran made a poor choice. Now they pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran\u2019s parliament and a main negotiator, responded. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe era of one-sided deals is OVER,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cWe told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the Strait of Hormuz using a route seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic\u2019s territorial waters. Tehran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it. <\/p>\n

Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE get attacked<\/p>\n

Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab nations.<\/p>\n

Qatar\u2019s military said in a statement it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in neighboring United Arab Emirates. <\/p>\n

Three people, including a child, were wounded as a result of falling shrapnel from the interception of Iranian attacks, Qatar\u2019s Interior Ministry said. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, missile alerts sounded for the third time on Sunday in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf home to the U.S. Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet. Kuwait\u2019s military also said it was intercepting incoming fire. <\/p>\n

The Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in northeastern Oman, in the area that sits on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had previously claimed attacks on Oman, which the sultanate did not acknowledge. The attack came after the two countries held talks on Saturday.<\/p>\n

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The UAE said the attacks on Sunday were outside of the country\u2019s borders, although sirens sounded in the morning. The UAE so far hasn\u2019t been targeted in the most recent round of attacks by Iran. The latest attack on the Emirates, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, came in May when a drone sparked a fire on the edge of the country\u2019s sole nuclear power plant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iran also made a series of claims about attacks elsewhere that were not immediately confirmed. <\/p>\n

In the Strait of Hormuz attack, a Cyprus-flagged container ship was hit by Iran and suffered \u201csignificant engineroom damage\u201d and a civilian crew member is missing, U.S. Central Command said early Sunday morning. <\/p>\n

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been traveling on a route hugging the shoreline of Oman. That\u2019s been the way ships have entered and exited the Persian Gulf while avoiding Iranian territorial waters. The ship\u2019s crew abandoned the vessel as it was ablaze, the center said. <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said multiple vessels \u201cdisregarded our warnings and instructions to correct their course and proceed along the approved route.\u201d One of them \u201cwas struck by a warning shot and brought to a stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran said that the strait would remain closed \u201cuntil further notice\u201d and said it would consider targeting \u201cadditional enemy bases in the region\u201d if it faced more attacks. <\/p>\n

Iranian state media reported U.S. strikes across swathes of the entire country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the Strait of Hormuz, and military sites in a province near Tehran.<\/p>\n

Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait <\/p>\n

The latest violence followed Iran and Oman\u2019s foreign ministers meeting on Saturday to discuss the strait, after days of Iranian attacks on ships<\/a> and U.S. retaliation<\/a> that dealt a blow to the interim deal to end the war. The narrow strait sits in both Iran and Oman\u2019s territorial waters, but has long been considered an international waterway.<\/p>\n

Oman said it and Iran agreed to continue discussing the Strait of Hormuz \u201cat the technical and political levels.\u201d However, Iran offered no statement about the strait being open to all \u2014 something sought by the Trump administration. <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, also vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war\u2019s opening strikes on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Such revenge \u201cis the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,\u201d Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a> said in a statement carried on state television.<\/p>\n

US questions who is in charge in Iran<\/p>\n

U.S. officials, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity about the current situation with Iran<\/a>, said the resumption of strikes even before the latest round came as a result of what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners who were trying to sabotage the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified under the new supreme leader.<\/p>\n

After the U.S. wrapped up strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, raising questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Israel didn\u2019t claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.<\/p>\n

The strikes in Iran over two rounds of strikes last week killed at least 17 people and wounded 115 others, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Weissert reported from Washington. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The United States attacked Iran early Sunday morning over an Iranian strike…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":929468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[3492,3881,69,56270,4216,57,3464,83,3461,6087,8132,220040,269500,50,141631,6986,5503,67,370,96,103,107],"class_list":["post-929467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-ap-top-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-drone-surveillance-and-warfare","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-international-agreements","tag-iran","tag-iran-government","tag-iran-war","tag-military-and-defense","tag-mohammad-bagher-qalibaf","tag-mojtaba-khamenei","tag-news","tag-persian-gulf","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116905967982881407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}