DUBAI — The United States attacked Iran early Sunday over an Iranian strike on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one crew member missing. Iran responded with attacks on countries in the Middle East including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to join in managing traffic there.
The fighting raised new questions as Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of their interim deal aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war.
The strait, a key route for the global supply of oil and natural gas and long considered an international waterway, has become the key sticking point in negotiations that seem in danger of collapse.
Iran says the strait is closed; U.S. disagrees
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites. It said the attacks, heavier than in recent days, would weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Trump said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran 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.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
The American military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said it was closed until calm is restored and it would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks.
The U.S. military said more than 140 ships had transited the strait over the last week. A multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy said traffic continued “at reduced levels” off both Oman and Iran. It said nearly 140 vessels transited daily before the war.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Oman summons Iranian envoy
Missile alerts sounded across several gulf Arab countries.
Qatar’s military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a child, were wounded as a result of shrapnel from the interception of Iranian attacks, Qatar’s Interior Ministry said, giving no details on their condition.
Missile alerts sounded in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf that is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Kuwait’s military also said it was intercepting incoming fire.
A day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait, the Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area that sits on the waterway.
Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran’s acts “irresponsible.”
Three Iranian missiles struck areas across Jordan, causing minor damage but no injuries, Jordan’s state news agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in the UAE, but the government said missiles did not cross into its territory.
Iranian strike harms Indian crew
A Cyprus-flagged container ship was hit by Iran and suffered “significant engine room damage,” the U.S. Central Command said.
Oman’s maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members, but one was missing. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the missing man is an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been hugging Oman’s shoreline.
Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said multiple vessels “disregarded our warnings” and ignored instructions to follow what it called an approved route. One “was struck by a warning shot and brought to a stop.”
Iranian state media later reported U.S. strikes across the country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.
The state of negotiations
The strait sits in both Iran’s and Oman’s territorial waters. Oman on Saturday said it and Iran agreed to continue discussing the strait “at the technical and political levels.” Iran offered no statement about the strait being open to all, something sought by the Trump administration.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal on ending the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach an agreement. A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss those talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, vowed Saturday in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on state television.
Gambrell and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington. AP writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.
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