The U.S. and Iran exchanged heavy fire, with Iran firing ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait and the U.S. attacking a military control station and firing on an empty oil tanker that it said was attempting to breach its blockade.
The latest episode was the most intense fighting in months and came at a time when diplomatic efforts have stalled.
Despite the heavy fire, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday night that the tenuous ceasefire was still “ongoing.” The two sides have repeatedly skirmished since the ceasefire went in place in April while refraining from a broad resumption of the war.
The fighting escalated after the U.S. disabled an empty oil tanker that it said was attempting to breach its blockade and load oil at Iran’s Kharg Island.
Iran then launched one-way-attack drones at civilian mariners that were trying to transit the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials said. The U.S. shot down three of the drones and conducted what they said were “self-defense strikes” on Iranian military ground control stations on Qeshm Island. The island sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz and gives Tehran control over ships’ movement through the crucial waterway.
Iran responded to the strikes by firing ballistic missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain, which host U.S. military bases. Two missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke apart in the air, and three missiles launched at Bahrain were intercepted by the U.S. and Bahrain air defenses, Centcom said in a statement. None of the missiles hit their target.
The oil tanker, known as the Lexi, was disabled earlier in the day after an American aircraft fired a hellfire missile into the engine room of the vessel as it was attempting to head toward Kharg Island, Centcom said. The vessel was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in March for transporting millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused the U.S. of igniting the string of fresh attacks by striking the Lexi. It said that Iranian forces had responded by attacking a vessel belonging to the “American-Zionist enemy.” It also said in a statement that the ballistic missiles were fired in response to the U.S. hitting a communications tower on Qesham Island.
Centrcom said that U.S. forces had successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks and that no American personnel had been harmed. The command denied Iranian claims that it struck U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, insisting “all Iranian attacks on American forces failed.”
