US carries out fresh strikes on Iran

American forces shot down four Iranian attack drones and struck southern Iran, according to a US official who said the increasingly strained ceasefire between Washington and Tehran continued to hold.

The official said forces from US Central Command, which oversees operations against Iran, shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones. They also struck a ground control station in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas that the US said was about to launch a fifth drone.

“These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” said the US official, speaking late on Wednesday in the US.

Oil rose on reports of the strikes. Brent crude, the international benchmark, added nearly 4 per cent to about $97.8 a barrel.

The strikes, which took place in the early hours of Thursday in Iran, are the second this week. The US said on Monday it had struck missile launch sites and boats that it said were laying mines in waters around Iran.

Tehran and Washington are seeking to formalise a ceasefire brokered in early April by negotiating a more permanent agreement.

The acknowledgment of the latest attack came after Iran media reported that three explosions were heard near Bandar Abbas, which also hosts Iranian bases, and that air defence batteries had been active for several minutes.  

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had responded to the strikes by attacking an American air base. The IRGC did not specify where the US base it attacked was, but nearby Kuwait said that its military was engaging “hostile missile and drone attacks”.

Confused messages have emanated from Tehran, where hardliners have pushed back against any concessions, and Washington in recent days on progress towards an agreement.

Iranian state media claimed on Wednesday to have obtained a copy of an unofficial draft deal which would lead to Iran completely opening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping within a month, while the US would lift its six-week-old maritime blockade and withdraw its forces from the “vicinity” of Iran. 

US officials denied that the Iranian reports were genuine. 

US President Donald Trump, who had until recently been projecting confidence that an agreement would be forthcoming, suggested that Washington remained unhappy with Tehran’s demands.

“They haven’t got there, we’re not satisfied with it, but we will be,” Trump said. “They’re negotiating on fumes, but we’ll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t.”

Sticking points include the fate of Iranian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and the reopening of the strait. Tehran has also demanded substantial sanctions relief.

Trump denied that the US would consider easing sanctions on Iran or would agree to the unfreezing of around $24bn in Iranian oil revenues held in accounts in Qatar.

“We’re not talking about any easing of sanctions or giving money,” he said. “We have control of money that they claim is theirs. We’ll keep control of that money. When they behave properly and when they do what’s right, we’ll let them have their money, but right now we’re not doing that,” he added.  

The US Treasury on Wednesday sanctioned the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a body created by Tehran to manage traffic and collect tolls from ships moving through the waterway. The order also threatened secondary sanctions against any entities doing business with the authority.

Trump, who has begun tying recognition of Israel by US partners in the Middle East to any deal with Iran, has been under pressure domestically over the conflict ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.

The renewed strikes in southern Iran have coincided with a fresh military push by Israel against Hizbollah, an Iranian-aligned militia, in southern Lebanon. Iran has repeatedly said that any long-term deal brokered with the US should cover Lebanon too. 

Israel, which clashed with Hizbollah on Wednesday, warned residents across a swath of southern Lebanon to evacuate, in the first such warning since April. It said that it considered large parts of southern Lebanon to be “combat zones”.