News24 | US strikes Iran drone operation, Trump vows free passage in Strait of Hormuz
US forces patrol the Arabian Sea near M/V Touska after firing upon the Iranian-flagged vessel that the US accused of attempting to violate the US naval blockade of Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz.
Handout Photo by the US Navy via Getty Images
US forces struck an Iranian drone operation.The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy fired toward a US oil tanker.US President Donald Trump said no country would have control over the 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 US 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 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 toward a US oil tanker that was trying to transit the strait, forcing it to turn back.READ | New US strikes on Iran and Israel attacks on Lebanon complicate Middle East peace effortsThe source said the US military then struck open ground around Bandar Abbas, with no casualties or damage reported.Iranian media later reported that a military official said four vessels had tried to transit the strait early on Thursday, only to be turned back by warning shots fired in their direction.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 the ceasefire.Oil prices, having fallen more than 5% on Wednesday, rebounded after Reuters reported the new strikes. US crude futures gained close to 2% to $90.38 a barrel in early Asian trade on Thursday.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 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’ll have to blow them up. They understand that, they’ll be fine.”The White House and Oman’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.The US Treasury Department later added the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the Iranian body set up to manage passage through the strait, to a list of sanctioned people and entities seen as posing threats to US national security.The Iranian TV report of a framework deal said the US 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 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 in a post on X.The three-month-old war has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher since it began on 28 February 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.
