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U.S. President Donald Trump said an interim agreement to end the war with Iran was “over” after Tehran carried out new attacks on U.S. bases in the Gulf, and that the U.S. would likely engage in additional strikes on Wednesday night.
In a flare-up of hostilities that pushed oil prices up to a two-week high, Iran said it had targeted U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait after U.S. forces struck Iranian targets in response to attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
The attacks further undermined efforts to turn a memorandum of understanding reached last month into a permanent peace deal to end the war, which began with U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
“I think it’s over,” Trump said Wednesday of the interim deal between Tehran and Washington, speaking to reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey.
“I don’t want to deal with them,” he said of the Iranian leadership. “They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people … it’s just a waste of time dealing with them.”
It was the latest turn in tone for Trump, who last month said the new Iranian leaders are “far less radicalized” than those in place before the war started, and that the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has “a very good reputation” in “some circles.”
“I’ll give a little warning: We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” Trump told reporters as he took questions ahead of a sideline meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard earlier said it carried out a joint missile and drone operation against key U.S. military sites in Bandar Salman, Bahrain’s Fifth Naval District and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone attempting to interfere in the operation.
Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, and the Kuwaiti army said air defences were confronting “hostile” missile and drone attacks. There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the U.S. military.
The U.S., meanwhile, launched a wave of military strikes against Iran on Wednesday in response to attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command said more than 60 small boats of the Revolutionary Guard were among the targets hit during the operation, which was intended to impose a heavy cost on Iran for strikes on shipping in violation of the ceasefire.
“The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back from attempting to transit the strait, ship-tracking data showed, as renewed attacks on vessels in the critical waterway heightened safety and security concerns.
The diversions come after a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker and a Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker were damaged near the strait on Tuesday
Oil prices jumped and global bond markets tumbled amid the latest developments. Brent crude futures leapt more than five per cent, the most in a day since late May, to $78.48 US a barrel.
U.S. attacks ‘necessary,’ Rutte says
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters before the summit that the new attacks by the U.S. on Iran were “absolutely necessary.”
“When you have a ceasefire and Iran is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally crucial that the U.S. forcefully react,” he said.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Iran’s attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait “unacceptable.”
Iran’s top joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, condemned the U.S. strikes as a “blatant act of aggression,” threatened a “crushing response” and warned that Tehran would not allow U.S. interference in the management of the strait.
As the U.S. and Israel-Iran war was raging, Capt. Raman Kapoor was stuck for more than two months on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf with 23 seafarers begging to go home.
A top Iranian negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, accused the U.S. of breaching the ceasefire agreement. He cited not only the latest U.S. military strikes, but renewed oil sanctions, violations of Iranian “adjustments” in the Strait of Hormuz and Israeli attacks against Lebanon.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” Qalibaf said in a post on X. “We don’t fold.”
Iranian media earlier reported explosions in Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island, on Qeshm Island and in the southern port cities of Sirik and Bandar Abbas.
Iran’s Press TV reported several blasts were heard in southern Kharg Island. CENTCOM made no mention of Kharg Island, from which Iran exports 90 per cent of its crude oil.
No civilian deaths were reported in Iran, but several people were injured by shrapnel from an “enemy projectile” that hit a commercial pier in Sirik, according to an Iranian state TV reporter. The reports said strikes also hit fishing piers in Sirik and in Bandar Abbas.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners pack the streets of Tehran to say their goodbyes to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s late supreme leader killed in a joint attack between the U.S. and Israel back on Feb. 28. The four-day funeral procession takes place against the backdrop of a ceasefire with the U.S. as the two countries look for a permanent end to the war, which delayed the ceremony up until now.