DUBAI/WASHINGTON – US forces conducted strikes in southern Iran against targets including boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites, in what it described as defensive actions, Reuters reported Tuesday.
The strikes came as Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Doha for talks with Qatar’s prime minister on a potential deal with the US to end the three-month-old war, an official briefed on the visit said on Monday, after Washington and Tehran played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in New Delhi earlier that the US would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering whether to deal with Iran in “another way.”
There was a “pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait (of Hormuz), get the strait open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off,” Rubio said.
China on Tuesday urged “parties concerned” to observe a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East war, after US forces attacked missile sites in southern Iran as well as boats trying to lay mines, AFP reported.
“We urge the parties concerned to fulfil their ceasefire commitments, resolve disputes through peaceful means … and promote the early restoration of peace,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular news briefing when asked for China’s reaction.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social on Monday, US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran were going “nicely,” but warned of fresh attacks if they failed. It “will only be a Great Deal for all, or no Deal at all,” he wrote.
Hours later, US Central Command said in a statement it had carried out fresh strikes designed “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.”
“US Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” said Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesperson.
Also Monday, Iran said it had downed a “hostile” stealth drone using a new air defense system, Iranian news agencies reported, without saying where it had come from.
“This is a sign from us that no more stealth drones can penetrate the skies of the Arabian Gulf,” Fars quoted unnamed officials as saying.
In another indication of the region’s tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday Israel would intensify strikes against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s military soon thereafter said it was attacking Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley and other areas.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire in mid-April, but Israel has continued airstrikes it says are acts of self-defense against Hezbollah, which was not party to the truce.
The official briefed on the Iranians’ Doha visit told Reuters the discussions focused on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, while Iran’s central bank governor attended to discuss the potential release of frozen Iranian funds as part of a final deal.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said earlier that nuclear issues would only be negotiated after the framework accord was agreed.
Trump has said his key aim in the war is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon with its highly enriched uranium. Tehran has consistently denied it has plans to do that.
In his Truth Social post, Trump also called on more Arab and Muslim states to sign up to the Abraham Accords, brokered during his first term in office and aimed at normalizing ties between those states and Israel. He said Saudi Arabia and Qatar should immediately sign and Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkiye should follow suit, calling his request mandatory.
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
A Pakistani source familiar with the matter said that the statement reflected an attempt to use the Iran diplomacy for a wider push around the accords — but that the two issues were “not interlinked and cannot be made so.”
Others saw the suggestion as aimed at making an Iran deal more palatable to skeptics.
“Trump is trying to sell an Iran deal as an Abraham Accords sequel: good for Israel, good for the region, tough enough for Washington,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.
“But he is trading one fantasy for another — from forcing Iran to surrender to pretending a fragile deal can anchor a new Middle East order.”
