US and Iran exchange new strikes as ceasefire talks falter over Israel’s military actions in Lebanon.
Centcom said US forces remained “vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted Iranian aggression during the ongoing ceasefire”.
Oil prices rose slightly on the news. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 0.8 per cent at nearly $97 a barrel in Asian trade.
Iranian state media reported the Revolutionary Guards had attacked the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain with missiles and drones. Iranian state media said the Guards had launched the attack in response to the US military targeting a communications tower on Qeshm Island.
Centcom denied a US military facility had been hit, saying that any suggestion Iran had struck the US Fifth Fleet headquarters and a US air base in the region was “false”. Iranian drones successfully targeted the US naval base in Bahrain earlier in the war.
The latest exchange of fire comes after days of heightened tensions amid an increasingly strained ceasefire and stalled peace talks between Washington and Tehran.
Iranian state-affiliated media on Monday said Tehran was suspending back-channel negotiations with the US in response to the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, warning that it could “complete the closure” of the strait, sending oil prices sharply higher.
After the White House last week suggested the two sides were nearing an agreement, Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted the US and Iran were still talking. In a post to his Truth Social platform, the US president said “conversations” had been “going on continuously”.
“Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!’” Trump wrote.
