US strikes Iran again, official says, after Trump denies deal on Strait of Hormuz

THE US military carried out new strikes targeting an Iranian drone operation that posed a threat to US forces and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a US official said, hours after President Donald Trump dismissed an Iranian report of a deal to restore traffic through the strategic waterway.

The US official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about military operations, told Reuters on Wednesday (May 27) that the military shot down four Iranian attack drones and struck a ground control station in the port city of Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone. A ceasefire between the US and Iran took effect in early April.

“These actions were measured, purely defensive and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the official said.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited a military source as saying that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy fired towards a US oil tanker that was trying to transit the strait, forcing it to turn back. The source said that the US military then struck open ground around Bandar Abbas, with no casualties or damage reported. The US military also carried out strikes in southern Iran on Monday, in what it described as defensive action but which Iran said was a “gross violation” of their ceasefire.

Oil prices, having fallen more than 5 per cent on Wednesday, rebounded after Reuters reported the new strikes. US crude futures gained close to 2 per cent to US$90.38 a barrel in early Asian trade on Thursday.

Trump says no country to control strait

At a Cabinet meeting attended by media on Wednesday, Trump dismissed an Iranian state TV report that it had obtained an unofficial draft of an agreement to restore commercial shipping through the strait to prewar levels within a month, with Iran and Oman jointly managing traffic.

Trump said that no single country would have control over the waterway, and appeared to threaten Oman, a country with which the US has decades-long military and economic ties.

“Nobody’s going to control (the strait),” Trump said. “It’s international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we will have to blow them up. They understand that, they will be fine.”

The White House and Oman’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.

The Iranian TV report of a framework deal said the United States would also lift its blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw military forces from Iran’s vicinity. But Trump’s comments and reports of new US military action showed that the two countries remain far apart even after suggestions from the White House in recent days that an initial deal to end the war could be imminent.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said that Trump’s “rhetoric” would not force Iran to back away from its demands to enrich uranium, wield authority over the strait and see sanctions against it lifted.

“It is obvious Trump, seeking a way out of this strategic deadlock, alternates between issuing threats and appealing for an agreement,” Azizi said.

The three-month-old war has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher since it began on Feb 28 with US and Israeli strikes. Trump has repeatedly said that a deal is close at hand. The strait, which handled a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas traffic before the war, the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capacity and ongoing sanctions are the sticking points in talks seeking to end the three-month-long conflict.

US forces

The waterway is covered by international law that guarantees foreign vessels the right to pass through.

Trump has also asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords normalising relations with Israel as part of a deal to end the war, which they have declined to do.

Iranian state TV said that the draft deal would also have the US withdraw military forces from the immediate vicinity, though it said the issue of US troops in the region needed further discussion. The White House dismissed the report as a “complete fabrication.” Teheran did not comment.

The US military has some 15,000 troops enforcing a blockade of Iran and thousands of additional forces at bases throughout the region, including in Gulf states such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

US naval vessels, some with thousands of sailors and Marines aboard, regularly transit the region, stopping in ports including in Oman. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Iranian TV report on the draft agreement did not mention Iran’s nuclear programme, which the US wants disbanded. Iranian sources have said that talks on the nuclear issue will come in a second round of negotiations – something that may not be acceptable to some of Trump’s closest supporters. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

“The bottom line is Iran’s never going to have a nuclear weapon,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the Cabinet meeting.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy said on Wednesday that 23 ships, including oil tankers, container ships and other commercial vessels, passed through Hormuz with its permission in the previous 24 hours, a fraction of the daily 125 to 140 vessels before the conflict. REUTERS