The US military has carried out new strikes on Iran, targeting a military site in Bandar Abbas, a strategic port city.
US Central Command (Centcom) confirmed its forces also shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones “that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz”.
It said they targeted the Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas as it was about to launch a fifth drone. Iranian media reported that explosions were heard to the east of the city.
The strikes come amid a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, and protracted negotiations to end the three-month war that has choked traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and shot up global energy prices.
Centcom described its actions as “measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire”.
During a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said that Iran is “negotiating on fumes”, insisting that his war strategy will not be impacted by November’s US midterm elections.
“Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t,” he said.
During that meeting, the president also urged Gulf nations to sign on to the Abraham Accords to normalise relations with Israel, which launched the war with the US on 28 February and is also embroiled in a war with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The president has threatened to resume a large-scale bombing campaign if Iran does not agree to his terms.
While Trump struck an optimistic note over the weekend, saying that a peace deal with Iran had been “largely negotiated”, by Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, he said that the US is “not satisfied”.
Earlier this week, Centcom confirmed a previous round of “self-defence” strikes on southern Iran on Monday in which they targeted Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to lay mines.
Centcom said those strikes were designed “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces”.
Iran condemned the strikes as “a grave violation of the ceasefire” and vowed that the Iranian government “will not leave any act of hostility unanswered.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also said on Tuesday that it had downed a US drone and fired at a fighter jet and another drone that entered Iranian airspace, but did not specify when.
It added that Iran had the “legitimate and definite” right to retaliate against any US ceasefire violations.
By BBC News
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