DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United States and Iran both claimed Monday to have control over the Strait of Hormuz, following a weekend marked by attacks across the broader Middle East that have further strained efforts to reach a diplomatic end to the war.
The latest escalation began Sunday when Iran struck a container ship in the strait off Oman’s coast, once again highlighting the waterway’s central role in negotiations. The narrow passage at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natural gas once moved, has faced repeated disruptions since the war began. Iran has sought to exert pressure there by targeting commercial vessels nearby and unnerving shipping companies.
Iran and the U.S. are approaching the midpoint of a 60-day interim agreement intended to lay the groundwork for talks on a lasting end to the conflict. Instead, the period has been overshadowed by renewed attacks tied to the strait and questions over its future, raising fears among world leaders that the war with Iran could resume in full.
“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
US says it has struck dozens of targets in Iran
U.S. Central Command said American forces carried out strikes Monday on dozens of targets, including air defense systems, radar installations, missile and drone equipment, and small boats.
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,” Central Command said. “Iran does not control it.”
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, also urged that the strait be restored to the open status it had before the war.
“The Strait of Hormuz has to be opened, freedom of navigation has to be respected,” she said.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power center in the country’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, sharply rejected America’s statement.
“The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it,” the Guard said.
Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait said it was intercepting hostile fire. There was no immediate word on damage in either country.
In Jordan, the kingdom’s military said it shot down four Iranian missiles in an incident that “resulted in zero casualties or material damage.” Jordan also hosts U.S. military forces and aircraft.
In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Markazi provinces and at least two people were killed, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported strikes on Sistan and Baluchestan province as well.
Meanwhile, a base belonging to the armed wing of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region, came under drone attack on Monday. Rebaz Sharifi, commander of the Kurdistan Militia Corps, said the strikes targeted the group’s Chamshar base, without giving details on casualties or damage. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Fighting focuses on the status of the strait
The U.S. military early Sunday said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites – a far-heavier set of attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” U.S. President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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.
Sunday’s attacks stretched to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman – whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. Oman, which long has been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West, summoned an Iranian diplomat to criticize the attack.
Iran described the strait as closed, while the U.S. military and Trump asserted it remained open.
Iran’s chokehold on the strait, however, has loosened as the U.S. military provided support to vessels moving along a southern route hugging the coastline of Oman. That new route has angered Iran, which launched repeated attacks on ships using it.
Iran’s grip on the strait led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel. But traffic numbers through the strait on the Oman route dropped over the weekend “to minimal levels, indicating that operators continue to prioritize perceived security over more direct transit options,” the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.com said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed Washington for the chaos gripping the Middle East.
“Considering the memorandum of understanding’s fourteen clauses, the Americans have, in this brief period, in one way or another, slaughtered its various components,” Baghaei told journalists Monday.
Baghaei also said Iran wouldn’t agree to visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency to Iranian nuclear sites bombed in 2025 by the U.S., where Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed still to be.
Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.
A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing.
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