The US forces conducted fresh strikes against multiple targets in Iran, including missile and drone storage locations, on Saturday, after a Panama-flagged tanker was allegedly attacked near the Strait of Hormuz.
US President Donald Trump threatened to wipe Iran out of existence if the violations continued.
“United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the ceasefire agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn! 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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” he added.
The Fars News Agency reported that people on the beaches and coastal areas of the Taharouyeh and Qeshm regions heard the sound of several explosions.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that Iran had been given a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement after the exchange of strikes between the two sides on Friday, following Tehran’s attack on a tanker vessel, M/V Ever Lovely.
“But they elected not to, when their forces launched a one-way attack drone that hit M/T Kiku this morning at 4:30 am (local time),” it said, adding that the Panama-flagged tanker was transiting near the Strait of Hormuz with more than two million barrels of crude oil.
Meanwhile, Iran maintained that it would regulate maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and that any violation of the ceasefire would be met with a crushing response.
“Violating the ceasefire constitutes a breach of Article 1 of the Islamabad Understanding and will lead to a complete halt of all tracks. Under the Islamabad Understanding, Iran will regulate maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Violating vessels will be dealt with more firmly than before,” Ibrahim al-Fiqar, spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the operational command center that coordinates the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a post on X.
Al-Fiqar said Iran has targeted eight US military sites and infrastructure at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
The Kuwaiti Army said it is confronting hostile missile and drone attacks, while Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior stated that its alarm sirens have been activated.
