US military reimposes naval blockade on Iranian ports, launches new strikes

The US military said Tuesday that it has reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports in response to Iran’s attacks on commercial ships on the Strait of Hormuz, as the interim ceasefire deal unravels and concerns grow about a return to all-out war.

The US first imposed the blockade in mid-April and then lifted it in mid-June, a day after the signing of the interim deal aimed at permanently ending the war. The deal set a 60-day timeline to also negotiate an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, but talks have stalled as fighting over the strait has intensified.

When US President Donald Trump announced the return of the blockade Monday, he also said he would impose a 20% fee on ships passing through the strait. But he dropped the plan to collect fees hours before resuming the blockade, citing requests from allies in the Gulf.

US and Iran exchange strikes for the third day

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The interim peace agreement was supposed to reopen a waterway that is key to world energy supplies and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war. Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines.

The US carried out another wave of strikes ahead of reimposing the blockade, a US official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in an interview aired Tuesday by IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, that the US was seeking to prevent Tehran from exercising what he described as “effective sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz.

Read moreMiddle East live: Trump backs down on Hormuz levy in favour of Gulf investment deals

A fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war, when it was open to all without tolls. When the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, it effectively shut the passage by attacking and threatening ships — a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage. That sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring.

Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the US military that is outside Tehran’s control, setting off tit-for-tat strikes. The US has threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops.

Trump said Tuesday that he was called by “kings and emirs” and other leaders who suggested an alternate arrangement to charging ships fees to pass through the strait.

“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.

Trump said he preferred that arrangement to charging tolls “because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait.”

It was unclear if the investment deals would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.

The US military’s Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities”. Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US military said.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.

War, talks, repeat: How to break the cycle between US and Iran?

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The International Maritime Organization said the attack killed two mariners and wounded 14 others on two of the tankers, Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, which were associated with the United Arab Emirates. The UAE threatened to retaliate.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah “ignored repeated warnings.”

Qatar on Tuesday condemned what it described as repeated Iranian attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, calling them an “egregious violation” of the three countries’ sovereignty and the international rules-based order.

In a statement on X, Qatar’s foreign ministry renewed its call for “dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation”.

Hours after the US said it ended its campaign of strikes, the Iranian city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was hit in at least four locations, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the southern port city of Bandar Abbas also were reported by Iranian state media on Tuesday evening.

The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast doubt on the interim peace deal — now almost halfway through the 60-day period in which negotiators were supposed to agree to a final accord, which also was meant to address Iran’s disputed nuclear program and other issues.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi said in an interview aired Tuesday by IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, that the United States was seeking to prevent Tehran from exercising what he described as “effective sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The passage of vessels is not important to the US. The US is not dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump has announced it many times,” Gharibabadi said. It was not immediately clear when the interview was recorded.

Trump's plan to charge fees would have been a change to longstanding US policy and a departure from US promises that the strait would remain open to all without tolls – recently offered by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a trip to the region.

Under the interim deal, Iran agreed that passage through the strait would remain free of charge for 60 days — but the agreement left open what would happen after. Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees. The US has disputed that.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly topped $87 early Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war. The price dipped to $78 in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement that he had changed course.

Regional mediators are still trying to get the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate diplomatic process, said Pakistan-led mediation was working around the clock to reactivate the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Lebanese and Israeli delegations met Tuesday in Rome and will continue US-mediated negotiations Wednesday. Shortly after the US and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah joined the conflict in support of its ally, Iran, and began attacking Israel. Israel responded with a ground invasion of Lebanon.

Last month, Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” outlining the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Implementation has stalled.

Before the fighting around the strait intensified, Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon repeatedly threatened to derail the interim deal. A truce now exists in Lebanon, but it remains unclear whether it will hold if the US and Iran return to full-scale war.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)