US central command (Centcom) has announced its forces have completed their latest round of strikes on Iran.
double quotation mark CENTCOM forces launched strikes on Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites across Iran. U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets fired precision munitions on Iranian targets that posed a threat to U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.
In its statement, Centcom said the strikes were in response to “Iran’s unwarranted. continued aggression” and US forces remain “vigilant, lethal, and ready.”
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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Kuwait’s army has said its air defence systems are intercepting “hostile aerial targets”. after Iran claimed it had launched attacks on US bases in the country.
The general staff of the Army said in its announcement that citizens must “adhere to the security. safety instructions and guidelines issued by the competent authorities, and to obtain information from the approved official sources.”
At the same time, Bahrain’s ministry of interior has once again issued an air raid alert. told people to head to the “nearest safe” place.
The US has launched new strikes against targets in Iran for the second consecutive day. after the downing of a US Apache helicopter over the strait of Hormuz, which Trump has blamed on Iran.
Donald Trump had promised to “hit them hard again” as a two-month-old ceasefire appears close to collapse.
The latest tit-for-tat attacks are the most severe escalation since a ceasefire was established in early April.
Trump, seemingly frustrated by the lack of progress in talks to turn a temporary ceasefire into a permanent truce, added: “We were really close to a deal,. they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baqaei, said US strikes had jeopardised the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. He accused Washington of undermining diplomacy with its attacks. contradictory messages, and said Israel was also harming the diplomatic process by continuing to violate the ceasefire in Lebanon.
Read our full report here:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said that they have struck bases in Kuwait. Bahrain in response to the latest US strikes.
“During two waves of operations, eighteen important targets belonging to the US Army in the bases of Ali. Ahmad Ahmad Air Force [were hit],” the IRGC said in a statement quoted by state-run IRNA.
Iranian media earlier reported that Iran had attacked the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
There was no confirmation of attacks from the US side. Iran made similar claims after the US strikes on Wednesday, but according to the US. its gulf allies, all of the drones and missiles fired by Iran were intercepted or missed their targets.
US central command (Centcom) has announced its forces have completed their latest round of strikes on Iran.
double quotation mark CENTCOM forces launched strikes on Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites across Iran. U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets fired precision munitions on Iranian targets that posed a threat to U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.
In its statement, Centcom said the strikes were in response to “Iran’s unwarranted. continued aggression” and US forces remain “vigilant, lethal, and ready.”
Bahrain’s interior ministry has issued an air raid alert. after Iran said it had targeted the US fifth fleet in the gulf country.
double quotation mark The siren has been sounded Citizens. residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place.”
Iran has targeted the US fifth fleet in Bahrain with drones. in response to the attacks on the south of the country, Iranian state media is reporting.
Iran made a similar statement on Wednesday, after the US launched its first round of strikes on the country, with claims that American bases in the region,. the fifth fleet in Bahrain, had been targeted with drones.
The US later said that none of the drones or missiles launched by Iran has hit their targets.
Iran’s joint military command has said its armed forces will give a ‘“crushing. decisive” response to any “aggression” from the US in the region.
The joint military command has already announced the complete closure of the strait of Hormuz. claimed that two vessels attempting to pass through the waterway have been targeted.
US central command has contradicted these claims, saying vessels continue to move through the strait. no US vessels were struck by Iranian drones.
The US is also contradicting claims from Iran that US ships near the strait of Hormuz were targeted by missile. drones launched by Iranian armed forces.
“No U.S. warships have been struck in the Strait of Hormuz,” US central command said in a post on social media.
US central command has said that commercial ships are continuing to transit “in. out of the Strait of Hormuz tonight,” contradicting claims from Iran that the strait has been closed.
Soon after the US began its latest round of strikes, Iran’s top joint military command said it was closing the strait of Hormuz for “passage of any vessels”,. that any vessel that attempts passage will be targeted.
Access to the strait has been restricted for months. with only a small number of vessels managing to enter or exit the key waterway at any time.
In his interview with a Fox News reporter, Trump also repotedly said the US bombing of Iran will “stop shortly”,. said he was leaving open the option of launching further strikes.
The US president also said that Israel was not involved in the Thursday strikes on Iran.
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