BREAKING REPORT: New attacks on Qeshm island in Iran
It’s being reported that there have been new midday attacks on Qeshm island of the coast of Iran, according to the Associate Press.
The attacks have yet been attributed to anyone, but the first guess would obviously be the US military.
Here’s the news:
The United States attacked Iran early Sunday over an Iranian strike on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one crew member missing. Iran responded with attacks on countries in the Middle East including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to join in managing traffic there.
Later Sunday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency cited the governor of Qeshm island, located near the strait, as saying that under a dozen projectiles had been fired at military targets there, with no casualties. There was no immediate comment by the U.S. military. The largest island in the Persian Gulf is home to about 150,000 people.
The fighting raised new questions as Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of their interim deal aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites. It said the attacks, heavier than in recent days, would weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
The U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said it was closed until calm is restored, and Tehran would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks.
The U.S. military said over 140 ships had transited the strait over the past week. A multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy said traffic continued “at reduced levels” off both Oman and Iran. It said nearly 140 vessels transited daily before the war.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.