Missile and drone strikes hit a host of Gulf states near the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as Iran again claimed sole and enduring of the essential waterway. Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait were amongst those to be targeted by Tehran.
The United States responded in kind with air strikes of its own on upwards of 140 key Iran military targets.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” U.S. President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” as the hostile exchanges began to unfold.
Trump’s refusal to back down in the face of Iranian aggression is well documented.
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AP notes Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war fully could resume.
“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement as shipping traffic quickly through the region diminished in the face of the dangers.
He also called for the restoration of “full freedom of navigation” in the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. military’s Central Command described its forces as hitting dozens of sites in the strikes Monday, including air defense systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment and small boats, the AP report sets out.
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,” U.S. Central Command said.
“Iran does not control it,” he added as freedom is sought for the waterway that once saw a fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natural gas pass through it.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power center in the country’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, sharply rejected America’s statement, per the AP report.
“The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it,” the Guard said.
Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait said it was intercepting hostile fire. There was no immediate word on damage in either country.
The weekend flare-up is the latest to undermine an interim agreement between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending the war which has triggered global economic shockwaves since it began in late February focussed on disputed control of the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
The AP contributed to this report