Middle East rocked by heaviest attacks since Iran-US ceasefire as talks press on

TEHRAN – The Middle East has been rocked by US and Iranian attacks of a scale unseen since an April ceasefire, as fighting over the strategic Strait of Hormuz threatened to derail efforts to permanently end the war.

As the US attacks on Iran continued on July 13, Tehran said it would stop complying with a framework agreement to halt the fighting if Washington fails to meet its commitments.

It also responded with attacks of its own targeting Gulf nations, with the powerful Revolutionary Guards announcing new strikes on Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Oman.

“There is no doubt that this document is in crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said of the June memorandum of understanding.

“Each time that the other party has failed to meet its obligations, we did not uphold ours,” he added. “We will continue to act in this manner.”

He nonetheless added that Tehran was continuing talks with mediators from Qatar, Pakistan and Oman in an effort to prevent any further escalation.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces had completed their latest barrage, which began overnight, on dozens of Iranian targets.

US aircraft, naval vessels and drones hit “dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran’s Mehr news agency reported fresh blasts of unknown origin in the south around midday on July 13, adding that they “appear to be coming from the West Coast of Bandar Abbas”.

The past week’s hostilities have centred on the critical energy trade route, which Iran’s Guards say is “closed” but which the United States maintains is open to maritime traffic and not controlled by Iran.

Oil prices, which tumbled after the announcement of the June agreement, jumped by up to 4.5 per cent, with the US benchmark WTI climbing to nearly US$74 a barrel on fears of hampered supply on global markets.

Mediators have been trying to salvage a diplomatic resolution to the war after President Donald Trump this week declared the April ceasefire over.

Pakistan, a key intermediary in negotiations, expressed “deep concern at escalation in regional tensions”, according to its foreign office.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the US attacks have “caused the return of insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz” and “rendered futile all efforts” at establishing peace in the region.

But analyst Bader Al-Saif said the escalating attacks would merely delay a permanent agreement.

“Both sides want to end the impasse on their own terms, and they are increasingly finding it difficult to do so. Hence, the return to and increase in the scale of attacks,” said Al-Saif, an associate fellow at Chatham House. “That only prolongs what will eventually happen: a negotiated settlement.”

‘Heinous attacks’

Iranian state media reported two deaths in the latest US strikes that it said targeted large areas across the south and west.

One person was killed and four wounded at a water pumping station in the south-western city of Mahshahr, state news agency IRNA said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck US military targets and bases in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Air raid alerts sounded in Bahrain, while Kuwait’s army said the country’s forces were intercepting “hostile aerial targets”.

Jordan’s army said it intercepted four Iranian missiles.

Bahrain’s military accused Iran of committing “heinous attacks with missiles and drones that target civilians”, adding it shot down a number of Iranian projectiles early on July 13.

The renewed fighting followed an Iranian attack early on July 12 on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz whose crew was forced to abandon it after it went up in flames.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said after the incident that “the Strait of Hormuz will be closed until further notice and until the end of American interventions in this region”, according to state news agency IRNA.

US CENTCOM countered on X that the strait was “open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit”. AFP