U.S. forces launched a new wave of military strikes against Iran late Tuesday, officials said, citing a desire to impose costs on Tehran following Iranian attacks on commercial shipping.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement issued shortly after 5 p.m. that it had begun “powerful strikes” in response to attacks on vessels that had been “crewed by innocent civilians” in the Strait of Hormuz. The vital waterway has been at the center of tensions between Washington and Tehran for months.
U.S. officials called the Iranian attacks “unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation” of a ceasefire to which U.S. and Iranian officials agreed. The truce has been shaky from the start, with strikes launched by both sides.
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he anticipates that Central Command will say more about the strikes after they are complete. They are expected to go on for some time.
The U.S. strikes followed accusations from Qatari officials who said Iran had attacked a tanker ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and that it would hold Tehran responsible for “any resulting damages [and] consequences” from the incident.
In a Tuesday post on X, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said the targeting of the Al-Rekayyat — a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker — was a “grave & explicit violation” of international law.
“We demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran immediately cease all practices that undermine regional security or threaten the safety of international maritime navigation,” he wrote.
Iran has not claimed responsibility for the incident, which came as huge crowds attended a funeral procession for Iran’s slain leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike in February. Iran’s state media reported earlier that a Qatari tanker was targeted after attempting to pass through the Omani side of the strait.
U.K. Maritime Trade Operations said in a post Monday on X that a tanker was hit by a projectile, causing a fire on board, while traveling south out of the narrow waterway off the coast of Limah in Oman. The monitoring agency, which is part of Britain’s Royal Navy, said no casualties or damage were reported and that authorities are investigating. It did not specify the name of the vessel or type of projectile that hit it.
Iran has repeatedly insisted it has the right to control the strait, and attacks on commercial ships have sparked clashes between Iranian and U.S. forces in recent weeks, with both sides accusing each other of violating a 14-point ceasefire agreement that Iran and the U.S. signed in June to end the war.
Restoring the flow of traffic through the narrow strait, which once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies, is a key element of the agreement. A 60-day negotiating period is in place to work out some of the thorniest issues in the conflict.
So far, the ceasefire deal has broadly held, with monitoring agencies reporting a tentative recovery in the number of ships traveling through the waterway. More than 200 ships passed through the strait in the week ending Sunday, according to maritime monitor Lloyd’s List Intelligence, with daily numbers higher than before the agreement was signed but still below the levels seen before the war began in late February. The UKMTO said the maritime security threat level remains “substantial.”
On Tuesday the vast funeral procession for Khamenei moved to Qom, after huge crowds filled the streets in Tehran to bid farewell to the ayatollah who ruled the country for 37 years before being killed in an airstrike on the opening day of the war.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a Tuesday post on X that neither Iranians who turned out to mourn nor the military are “moved by any threats.”
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