The China Mail - US hits Iran as Gulf states targeted in flareup over Hormuz

The fresh fighting and Iran's announcement over the weekend of a new closure of Hormuz -- a key conduit in the world's oil trade -- sent crude prices climbing on Monday and further battered an interim peace deal.

Iran responded to the latest US attacks by targeting Gulf nations, with the powerful Revolutionary Guards announcing new strikes on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, according to state media reports.

The US Central Command (CENTCOMM) said its forces had completed their latest barrage, which began overnight Sunday, on dozens of Iranian targets.

US aircraft, naval vessels and drones had "completed a new wave of offensive strikes against Iran... hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz."

The past week's hostilities have centred over competing claims over the critical energy trade route, which Iran's Guards say is now "closed" while the United States maintains the strait is open to maritime traffic and is not controlled by Iran.

Oil prices, which tumbled after the announcement of the June agreement, jumped 4.5 percent when futures trading opened Monday in Asia, with the US benchmark WTI jumping above $74 a barrel on fears of hampered supply on global markets.

Mediators have been trying to salvage a diplomatic solution to ending the war after President Donald Trump this week declared a ceasefire over.

Pakistan, a key intermediary in negotiations between the rival countries, expressed "deep concern at escalation in regional tensions", according to its foreign office.

Iran's foreign ministry said the US attacks on Sunday had "caused the return of insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz" and "have rendered futile all efforts" at establishing peace in the region.

Iranian state media reported two deaths in US strikes that it said targeted large areas across southern and western Iran, including Qeshm island and Bandar Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz, and in Khuzestan province bordering Iraq.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had struck US military targets and bases in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, state media reported on Monday.

Air raid alerts sounded in Bahrain where the interior ministry while Kuwait's army said the country's forces were intercepting "hostile aerial targets" on Monday.

Jordan's army said it had intercepted four Iranian missiles.

- Back and forth strikes -

The renewed fighting followed an Iranian attack early Sunday on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whose crew was forced to abandon it after it went up in flames.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said after the incident that "the Strait of Hormuz will be closed until further notice and until the end of American interventions in this region," according to state news agency IRNA.

Control of the strategic waterway has become key leverage for Iran, with an adviser to the country's supreme leader on Sunday saying it was more important than "dozens of atomic bombs."

US CENTCOM countered on X that the strait was "open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit."

On Sunday evening, Iranian state media reported at least 10 "enemy projectiles" hitting Qeshm Island, which sits on the Strait of Hormuz.

It reported further strikes on the island of Farur, to the east of Qeshm in the Gulf, that it said killed a telecommunications worker and wounded two others.

IRNA also reported early on Monday morning that US strikes had killed one person and wounded four at a water pumping station in the southwest city of Mahshahr.

Iran's Guards said they also hit Oman, which has rarely been targeted.

Muscat summoned the Iranian ambassador and handed him a formal protest -- a rare move for the sultanate, which has been attempting to balance competing demands from Washington and Tehran.

The attack came just hours after the country hosted Iran's foreign minister to discuss the Strait of Hormuz.

- Trade of rhetoric -

Sunday's attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the waterway left one Indian sailor missing, New Delhi said.

Muscat, meanwhile, said it had rescued 23 crew members from a commercial ship.

The crew abandoned ship and transferred to a lifeboat, around 17 kilometers (10 miles) east of Oman, British maritime agency UKMTO reported.

Separate Iranian strikes on ships in Hormuz had triggered fighting earlier this week, along with heated rhetoric.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed revenge for the killing of his father and predecessor on the first day of the war, and said Iran had compiled a list of individuals to be targeted.

Trump on Saturday said any attempt to assassinate him would lead the United States to "completely decimate" Iran.

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A.Kwok--ThChM