US and Iran exchange fresh attacks as conflict sharply escalates

[WASHINGTON/DUBAI] The US launched a barrage of airstrikes against Iran on Tuesday (Sep 1), prompting Iranian retaliation, in the most serious escalation in weeks in a conflict that has driven up global energy prices and weighed on US President Donald Trump’s popularity at home.

The strikes followed an exchange of fire over the Aug 29-30 weekend – the first since July – and after two tankers were hit on Monday leaving the Strait of Hormuz, the global oil supply waterway that Iran has effectively closed to shipping.

Global oil prices rose more than US$4 a barrel on Tuesday, settling at a five-week high.

Teheran struck back at US assets in Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq, and remained defiant, warning that it would prevent oil being exported from the Gulf. This comes despite a threat by Trump to hit Iran “hard” in response to the renewed Iranian strikes, and a warning from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Washington was about to impose new sanctions.

Five people were killed and 50 wounded at a wedding near Sirik, a coastal area on the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian Red Crescent reported. The Mehr news agency said a 4-year-old child was among those killed, while the IRNA news agency, citing a provincial official, put the number of wounded at 68.

There was no immediate US reaction to the reports.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement the US attacks would “tighten the lock” on the Strait of Hormuz, which carried one of every five barrels of the world’s oil before the war.

“If the enemy wants us not to export oil from the Persian Gulf, no one will be able to export oil,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Neither threats of strikes nor new economic sanctions appear to have materially changed the position of Teheran, which has been under heavy economic sanctions for half a century.

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The US strikes followed a month of relative calm in which the US and Iran mostly held their fire while exchanging hostile statements.

The US military’s Central Command said it had completed a wave of strikes against IRGC targets on Tuesday including air defence sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites.

Iranian media reported multiple strikes, including a US missile attack near the city of Ahvaz and at the civilian Jiroft airport in south-eastern Iran, while explosions were heard in the south-eastern port of Chabahar, the port city of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, and in Asaluyeh, a critical gas hub on the Gulf coast.

Iran’s state broadcaster also reported explosions on Iran’s Qeshm Island, on the northern side of the strait.

Iran fires back

Trump warned Iran against responding to Tuesday’s assault, threatening to strike again “at a much harder and higher level.”

“But it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” Trump said in a social media post.

Even so, the IRGC said it fired back with a heavy ballistic missile attack on a base in Jordan and “killed a large number of US forces.”

There were no casualties so far from the Iranian attack on facilities in Jordan, two US officials told Reuters. This was based on initial information and could change as Iranian attacks continued, the officials said.

Iranian media also reported the country’s military targeted a US base in Bahrain with a large-scale drone attack, and the Kuwaiti army reported its air defences were responding to a hostile drone attack.

Since the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb 28, Iran has responded with missile and drone strikes on US allies in the region.

Jordan’s armed forces said its air defence systems dealt with 13 ballistic missiles that entered the kingdom’s airspace, 10 of which were intercepted and three fell in remote areas.

Bahrain said Iranian drones were intercepted and destroyed.

The IRGC also said its ground forces carried out combined missile and drone attacks on US bases in Erbil in northern Iraq, destroying a repair facility, warehouses for technical equipment and a system used to control a US surveillance balloon. The IRGC also said fuel tanks were set ablaze and several US personnel were killed.

Neither Iraq nor the US had confirmed the attack.

Trump plays down the prospects of another ceasefire

The six-month-old conflict had shifted into an economic stand-off before the weekend strikes, in which US forces attacked Iran’s Larak Island on Aug 30 and Iran responded by launching missiles at two US air bases in Jordan.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump played down the prospects of another ceasefire. The US and Iran reached a deal in June that quickly fell apart, largely over interpretations of Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We gave them a lot of chances,” Trump told Fox News. REUTERS