The United States and Iran have traded strikes in the first such confrontation since a preliminary agreement was reached on June 15 to end the months-long war.
Both sides traded blame, accusing each other of violating the terms of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Al Jazeera.
At the heart of the latest escalation lies a struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz, which was blocked by Iran in response to the US-Israeli war. Tehran has used the waterway – a global energy chokepoint – as a geostrategic leverage point.
So, what’s behind the US strikes on Iranian territory and where has Tehran returned fire? Will it unravel the agreement between the two sides?
Where has the US struck and why?
The US Central Command said that the military’s aircraft struck missile and drone storage locations and radar sites along Iran’s southern coastline late on Friday, “as a powerful response to yesterday’s attack on a commercial ship that was transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.
On Thursday, a Singapore-flagged commercial vessel, Ever Lovely, was struck by an unknown projectile off Oman’s coast. Iran did not acknowledge the attack, but did not deny it either.
President Trump had called the attack “a foolish violation” of the ceasefire agreement, adding that US forces also intercepted three other drones launched in the same coordinated attack.
Later, the US military published a grainy black-and-white video of an explosion labelled “unclassified,” noting that “the unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire”.
“Iran’s dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor,” the US military added, referring to the uptick in traffic in the Strait of Hormuz since the agreement was reached.
It added that the US would continue to provide “safe passage coordination and support” to commercial vessels transiting the strait.
