US launches new attacks on Iran as Trump claims right to control Hormuz
Iran claimed to have destroyed US bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman, in retaliation to its most intensive strikes since the ceasefire over the weekend and on Monday, mostly targeting its southern territories.
US Command Center and air base in Jordan. Photo: Fars News Agency
President Donald Trump justified his fresh military aggression against Iran over the weekend and on Monday and threatened more such attacks in the coming days, in what appears to be a new phase of the US war on Iran.
Trump, while speaking to Fox News over the phone, accused Iran of “violating the deal” signed last month, days after he himself declared it to be “over.”
In a surprise move, he also proposed a US version of a toll tax on the Hormuz, claiming the countries using it are rich and “we just want to be reimbursed for doing all this, for putting our people in danger.”
Trump’s statement followed Iranian accusations of US violations of the memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries last month.
Esmail Baghaei, official spokesperson of Iran’s foreign ministry, during his regular weekly press briefing on Monday, July 13, rubbished Trump’s accusation against his country and instead accused the US for being “impatient to break the deal.”
He underlined that instead of allowing Iran the period agreed upon in the MoU to resolve the issue of management of the Strait of Hormuz the US started pushing its own agenda and in complete violation of the agreement tried to create an alternative route bypassing Iran.
Baghaei claimed that the US actions in the last weeks have put the overall peace deal in danger as Iran will not allow any interference in the strait’s management and no violations of the deal will go unpunished.
Iran has been claiming that paragraph 5 of the MoU gives it 60 days to find an arrangement to manage the strait in consultation with other countries in the region.
Based on the understanding, Iran allowed the strait, through which nearly a quarter of the world’s energy trade happens, to reopen last month and has been working to finalize an alternative mechanism in consultation with Oman.
However the US, first with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and then alone, tried to create an alternative route in Omani waters, completely avoiding Iranian territorial waters.
On Monday, Baghaei also accused the US of pressurizing Oman, “overtly or covertly,” to avoid being part of any mechanism with his country to manage the strait in future.
Meanwhile, the US has used the unclaimed attacks in the last few weeks on some ships trying to use the alternative route to accuse Iran and relaunch airstrikes, targeting mostly its southern parts.
The attacks over the weekend were the most intensive during the ceasefire, with US Central Command claiming on Monday that they were aimed at degrading the Iranian “ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran claims attacks on multiple US bases in the region
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in a statement on Monday morning, claimed to have targeted and destroyed multiple US command centers in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, in response to “savage [US] attacks on Iran’s coastal bases” over the weekend.
In a statement issued on Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry accused the US of carrying out “the most heinous war crime by attacking Iran’s transportation infrastructure, fishing boats, and cargo dhows, as well as meteorological facilities and buildings over the past 24 hours.”
It also claimed to have intercepted and destroyed an American “Lucas” drone over the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas on Monday.
The IRGC claimed to have destroyed “several large missile depots and fuel storage tanks at Jordan’s Prince Hassan Air Base,” the US military’s “drone command and control center” at Sheikh Isa Airbase, its fuel storage tank and a Patriot Air Defense System at the Ain al-Salem airbase; both of them in Bahrain, and its strategic radar systems at Ahmed al-Jaber Airbase in Kuwait, and in Oman.
During his briefing on Monday, Baghaei clarified that all Iranian responses were defensive in nature and targeted US bases only. He repeated his country’s call to its neighbors to not allow their land or air space for attacks against Iran, warning of strong responses otherwise.
Reacting to Trump’s claims of controlling the Hormuz, Iran also repeated that it will never allow the US to interfere in its management. It warned the neighboring countries against collaborating with the US in any way in the matter, claiming it would be considered a declaration of war against the Islamic Republic.
