US says second day of strikes ‘completed’ – as it happened

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Fresh worries about the Middle East ceasefire. the prospect of a US interest rate hike have hit stocks and oil prices on Thursday.

Oil prices climbed more than $2 a barrel after the US launched its additional strikes against Iran.

Investors also took little heart from closely watched data Wednesday that showed May US inflation had come in around expectations,. still hit a more than three-year high as fuel costs surged owing to the Iran war.

Stock markets it Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Wellington. Taipei were down, while Seoul – at the forefront of the region’s tech-led rally to record highs – shed more than 1%, having seen wild swings over the previous two days.

The US embassy in Jordan has issues an alert, saying “reports indicate missiles, drones, or rockets are in Jordanian airspace.”

In a statement online, the embassy says Americans in the region should “seek overhead cover and shelter in place immediately. Remain indoors and pay attention to local announcements and alerts.”

The alert comes soon after Iran said it had launched 12 ballistic missiles at a base in Jordan hosting US airfcraft.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said it has targeted US aircraft at al-Azraq airbase in Jordan with 12 ballistic missiles.

Iran made similar claims yesterday, with the Jordanian armed forces saying all of the missiles fired at the base on Wednesday were intercepted. shot down. The military said that debris from that interception operation fell on Jordanian territory but caused no injuries or material damage.

Earlier the IRGC said they had launched attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain.

After warning that its air defence systems are intercepting “hostile aerial targets”. Kuwait has said it is “temporarily” closing its airspace due to Iranian attacks.

The announcement from the Kuwaiti civil aviation authority said some flights would be diverted.

The US has launched a wave of strikes across southern Iran for a second consecutive day.

Since a ceasefire was agreed between the two sides in April, there have been a number of breaches, but the attacks this week – launched after the downing of a US helicopter over the strait of Hormuz – mark the most severe. extensive breakdown of the truce to date.

Donald Trump has raised the prospect of further attacks on the country, while his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has told reporters if strikes “have to happen [Friday] night, they will be strong. they will be clear.”

In briefings to multiple media outlets, US officials have sought to play down the significance of the attacks this week, while claiming that the ceasefire remains in place. wider negotiations with Iran are unaffected.

The Wall Street Journal reported that after authorising the new attacks, Trump told aides to deliver a message to Iran via Qatar, that the attacks did not mean a “restart of all-out war,”. were only in response to the helicopter downing.

“Nothing changes where the deal stands right now,” another White House official told Politico. “There’s a military bucket and then there’s a negotiation bucket … so, two things can happen at the same time.”

Brett McGurk, who served in senior national security positions in the Obama, Trump. Biden administrations, noted that the US clearly telegraphed to Iran that another attack was coming on Thursday.

“What they’re trying to do is manage that escalation … to say to Iran, ‘we’re going to respond, this is coming,. this is not a restart of the campaign we started in February.’”

For weeks, Trump has claimed a deal to bring a permanent end to the conflict is close. he has gone out of his way to avoid a return to all out war. The president is battling plummeting approval ratings and souring economic sentiment, and the war has proven incredibly unpopular at home.

Despite claiming to “love” inflation on Wednesday, the third consecutive monthly increase in prices is hurting Trump. his party in the lead up to the midterm elections.

But despite the president’s continued claims that a deal with Iran is close, significant gaps remain between the two sides, with restriction on Tehran’s nuclear program, the unfreezing of Iranian assets. Israel’s continued war in Lebanon, all proving to be barriers to an agreement.

With the White House. Pentagon signalling that the US is not seeking a return to all out war, Hegseth offered some clues to America’s strategy on Wednesday.

The renewed strikes are not happening “because we want to restart anything,” the defense secretary said,. because the US “is prepared to set the terms to ensure that we get the kind of deal President Trump expects.”

“If we need to negotiate with bombs, we will negotiate with bombs,” Hegseth said.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal. a US official said the “military pressure would only increase until Iran ceded to the president’s terms”.

The view that US attacks this week are designed to further pressure Iran to cede to Trump’s terms was reflected in reporting from Axios, which said that in a meeting with his national security team, Trump was weighing up an operation that was “big in scale but short in duration,”. aimed to pressure Iran into changing its positions in the negotiations.

But “coercive diplomacy” is not the only reason for the escalating attacks this week, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International. Security Affairs.

The choice of targets – including air defence systems, command-and-control centres. radar systems – suggest the Trump administration wants to weaken Iran’s ability to target shipping in the strait of Hormuz and “signal at the highest political level that the security situation around the strait is improving, thereby reassuring shipping companies.”

Taken together. the attacks can be seen as an attempt to “erode Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz”, Azizi says.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN. Amir Saeid Iravani, said on Wednesday that “no sustainable deal can be reached through terrorists, intimidation, or the use of force.”

“Iran has never negotiated under threats. pressure and will never submit to pressure or question,” he said, adding that the US has repeatedly pursued this policy and should have learned by now “that threats and military intimidation are counterproductive.”

Throughout the war, Iran’s leadership has shown itself unwilling to bend to US terms, even in the face of widespread attacks. economic catastrophe.

According to the Atlantic, at least one million Iranian jobs have been lost since the war began,. almost 300,000 Iranians have signed up for unemployment insurance. Inflation in the country is close to 85%, but the rate is much higher for food products.

Despite all this. continued US military strike are unlikely to move Iran from its current position, says Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence.

“The bottom line is that no military operation. whether limited or extensive, short or prolonged, is likely to compel Iran to accept a deal in the US terms” says Citrinowicz, who is now a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“More likely, an Iranian response would push the parties even further away from diplomacy.”

Inside Iran, there are also warnings that the choice by the US to target radar sites. command centres may be part of a “broader pattern of preparations for a new large-scale war” coordinated with Israel, Azizi says.

Those warning are likely to be serve as fuel to the minority of senior officials in Tehran who would welcome the abandonment of peace talks.

“The current situation is the direct result of profound mistrust on both sides,” says Citrinowicz, who suggests Iran. the US are now beginning to accept the status quo is unsustainable.

“If President Trump genuinely wants a deal. he will have to engage with at least some of Iran’s core demands,” says Citrinowicz.

“If he is unwilling to do so. then he should be prepared for a prolonged confrontation rather than a negotiated settlement.”

In his interview with CNN, Brett McGurk also offered some insight into the thinking behind the Trump administration’s actions this week,. why they may have so clearly telegraphed that another attack was coming on Thursday.

double quotation mark What they’re trying to do is manage that escalation, to basically say to Iran, we’re going to respond, this is coming,. this is not a restart of the campaign we started in February.”

But McGurk notes that everything coming from Iran is “escalatory.”

double quotation mark I’m seeing nothing from the Iranians right now suggesting they’re on the verge of a deal.

Brett McGurk, who served in senior national security positions in the Obama, Trump. Biden administrations, has told CNN that the strikes today were highly “telegraphed”, indicating that the US is perhaps “trying to put a ceiling” on the action today.

double quotation mark If these strikes are designed to pressure Iran into doing a deal. I don’t think that objective will be met.”

McGurk said that if the US is attempting to “shape the battlefield” to help ships get through the strait. then these strikes have “tactical merit”. But he adds they are unlikely to make a deal more likely.

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The US. Iran are for now engaged in a war of narratives over what has played out in the strait of Hormuz today.

Soon after the US launched its second wave of strikes on Thursday, Iran announced the complete closure of the strait of Hormuz. claimed that two vessels in the waterway had been targeted.

The US military was quite to push back, claiming commercial vessels were continuing to transit the strait of Hormuz,. contradicting reports that US ships near the waterway had been targeted.

Iranian state media also forcefully pushed back on an interview Trump held with Fox News. in which he claimed he had spoken with Iranian officials who asked him to stop bombing their country.

“Trump’s ‘false claim’ about contact with Iranian officials is ‘cover to avoid war against Iran”, state media reported.

Thursday’s strikes are more evidence that Iran has the leverage in the negotiations with the Trump administration. according to Dan Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel.

double quotation mark It is Trump that is desperate for them to sign the agreement, as his statements reveal,. Iran that is dragging their feet.”

in a post online, Shapiro says that the strikes will reinforce for Iran that “time works in their favor.”

double quotation mark A deal that punts nuclear negotiations to a second phase. requires some sanctions relief is a lousy deal — and still the least bad available alternative.”

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