US Strikes Iran Again as Tit-for-Tat Attacks Test Ceasefire
(Bloomberg) -- The US conducted a fresh round of attacks on multiple targets in Iran, while the Islamic Republic launched strikes against eight key American military infrastructure sites in the Middle East, as both sides accused each other of violating a ceasefire that underpins peace talks.
The first American strikes Friday came in response to Tehran’s attack on a container ship Thursday, but Iran then hit another ship carrying Qatari oil on Saturday. On Sunday morning, hours after the second round of US strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps launched missiles and drones that targeted the Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait and the Fifth Fleet naval base in Salman Port, Bahrain.
The weekend’s tit-for-tat attacks are raising tensions in the wake of an interim US-Iran peace deal signed this month and risk slowing progress toward restoring traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to prewar levels. Talks over the details of a memorandum of understanding to end the war were due to resume Monday.
“Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,” the US military’s Central Command said in a statement posted on X on Saturday. “Commercial vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz continue. US forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.”
The US said it hit Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communications systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities.
“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social after the latest strikes on Iran.
The Joint Maritime Information Center on Saturday raised the security threat in the Strait of Hormuz to “substantial” and published a warning area for potential mines spanning much of the usual transit route. It also said the Omani route recommended by Western navies had been expanded to allow ships to transit in both directions simultaneously.
Iran said Saturday that it had targeted US sites in the Persian Gulf following US strikes on its missile storage and radar installations Friday. Those were in response to an Iranian drone hit on a container ship in Hormuz. An unnamed US official told CNN after the US strikes that the action didn’t constitute a return to major combat operations for now.
Tehran has repeatedly targeted Bahrain and other Gulf states that host American military bases and thousands of troops since the US and Israel launched the war in late February. There were no reported US casualties or major damage from Iran’s retaliation on Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday morning, a US official told Axios.
A UK naval group on Saturday said a tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in Hormuz, though vessel-tracking data show that multiple ships continued to transit the waterway Saturday morning.
Tehran and Washington have traded accusations that the other party violated the ceasefire. Iran’s foreign ministry in a statement on Saturday called the US attack “an explicit violation of the first paragraph of the Memorandum of Understanding” that the two countries signed.
The IRGC said on Sunday that “based on the Islamabad MoU, the traffic control arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz are with Iran, and from now on, violating ships will be dealt with more strongly than before,” Press TV reported in a post on X.
Since signing a 60-day truce last week, Trump has said that he would resume military action against Iran if it violates the agreement’s terms, which provide for the flow of vessels through the vital strait and talks over its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The two sides continue to clash over key provisions of the deal, including whether Iran will impose tolls or other costs on ships seeking to sail through Hormuz. Oman told European officials that vessels may ultimately have to be charged some fees, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Trump’s decision to attack demonstrates that he’s willing to use military force to maintain freedom of navigation in the strait. But Iran’s strikes have shown that it’s seeking to maintain control of the waterway, which was largely shut after the war began on Feb. 28, becoming its greatest point of leverage with the US as its near closure roiled the global economy.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
