US and Iran ramp up threats as strikes escalate, straining fragile truce

Regional states, including Bahrain and Kuwait, have condemned recent Iranian attacks on their countries after the US and Iran exchanged fresh strikes, straining the ceasefire agreement signed earlier this month.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted American military sites in neighboring countries following US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz. Later, the US military said it had launched more strikes on Iranian sites around the crucial waterway, saying they came in response to “continued Iranian aggression.”

Catch up on the latest developments here:

CNN’s Brad Lendon, Yasha Saebi, Jacob Lev, Casey Gannon, Aida Karimi and Tim Lister contributed reporting.

Several large merchant ships passed through the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz heading for ports in the Gulf – in a further sign that more vessels are prepared to use a route that hugs the Omani coast.

Among the ships that entered the Gulf on Sunday were two oil tankers and two liquid gas carriers, according to ship tracking service Marine Traffic. A container ship also passed through the Strait by the same route.

The vessels had their transponders turned on, and their routes into the Gulf passed within a few miles of the Omani coast.

But some merchant ships are still using a different route close to the Iranian coast.

French shipping giant CMA GGM said its container ship Galapagos had exited the Strait Sunday, saying the transit “marks an important ​milestone in a ​regional context that ⁠remains complex and requires constant ⁠vigilance.”

Ship-tracking data showed the Galapagos sailing between the Iranian islands of Qeshm and Hormuz as it left the Gulf late Saturday.

Traffic is still highly sensitive to drone attacks and the presence of mines in the Strait. The Joint Maritime Information Center, which is overseen by the US Navy, raised the threat level in the strait to “substantial” on Saturday after attacks on merchant vessels.

But it also said that the southern route through the Strait near Oman had been expanded to allow for greater passage of marine traffic in both directions.

An Israeli soldier was killed in southern Lebanon in a firefight with a Hezbollah gunman, the Israeli military said on Sunday, two days after a new agreement was signed in Washington between the two countries.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) identified the soldier as Capt. David Hazutt. An Israeli military official said Hazutt encountered a Hezbollah fighter after entering a “suspicious structure” near Deir Seryan in southern Lebanon. Hazutt was killed in the encounter, while another soldier was lightly injured.

A total of 38 Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon or northern Israel since the war began four months ago.

As of early Sunday afternoon, the IDF said the search for the gunman was ongoing as the military carried out strikes in the area.

According to Lebanon’s state National News Agency (NNA), Israel carried out strikes near Deir Seryan and Taybeh in southern Lebanon. NNA also reported that Israel had fired a cluster munition near the town of Shebaa close to the Israel-Lebanon border.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

A new agreement: Friday’s signing has been described as a first step towards a comprehensive peace deal. Israel has agreed to withdraw from some areas in southern Lebanon where it is battling Hezbollah militants.

Oil tankers and cargo vessels remain anchored off Port Sultan Qaboos in Muscat, Oman, on June 21.

The contest for control of the Strait of Hormuz — the maritime chokepoint at the mouth of the Persian Gulf — threatens to derail negotiations between Iran and the United States on a broader agreement to end the conflict.

Over the past three days, US and Iranian forces have targeted each other after Iran attacked two ships transiting the Strait.

Tehran insists that ships must have its permission to sail through the Strait on designated routes. But a growing number of vessels are using a route that hugs the Omani coast, threatening Iran’s leverage over the waterway.

On Thursday, 18 vessels transited inbound and 45 outbound through the Strait of Hormuz, according to maritime analysts Windward. It said more than half the vessels leaving the Gulf had used the southern route close to Oman.

Several large crude carriers have been loading oil at Saudi and Emirati ports in preparation for passage through the Strait, according to shipping analysts.

Then the International Maritime Organization suspended use of the route after a cargo ship was attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.

“However, given the vessel attack [on Thursday] and the IRGC reportedly instructing multiple tankers transiting the southern corridor to turn around on June 25, transits have slowed,” it added.

A statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Sunday insisted that “according to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, control over transit and passage through the Strait of Hormuz lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“From now on, violating vessels will be dealt with more forcefully than before,” it said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, also reiterated that the war must end completely on all fronts, including in Lebanon, at his news conference in Baghdad.

“It is regrettable that Israel continues its attacks. Under the commitments set out in the agreement, the US bears direct responsibility for stopping the attacks, implementing the ceasefire, and ensuring a withdrawal from occupied areas,” he added during a news conference in Iraq.

The memorandum of understanding reached between the US and Iran includes a ceasefire in Lebanon. But this - as well as a new agreement signed between the governments of Israel and Lebanon signed on Friday - have done little to reduce clashes in southern Lebanon.

Israel has said its forces will remain in southern Lebanon as they seek to degrade the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

Interference in Iran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz will escalate tensions, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, amid signs of ships evading Tehran-controlled routes.

Speaking at a news conference during a visit to Iraq, Araghchi said that under the agreement with the United States reached earlier this month “and once obstacles are removed, the Strait of Hormuz will return to its pre-war capacity within 30 days under Iran’s exclusive management.”

“The incidents and clashes in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights are evidence of this,” Araghchi said, referring to strikes by the US on Iranian coastal installations after drone attacks on two merchant ships close to Hormuz since Thursday.

Araghchi did not specify the “parallel arrangements” but a growing number of ships have sought to evade Iranian control of the passage by taking a southern route close to the Omani coast.

What’s in the agreement? The ceasefire agreement stipulates that Iran will make “arrangements using its best efforts” to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Ensuring unobstructed transit was Iran’s main concession to the US.

However, a vaguely worded article in the agreement said Iran and Oman would work together to “define the future administration” of the waterway, effectively giving Tehran a formal role in managing it.

Kuwait’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has condemned what it said were “repeated, heinous” Iranian attacks on Sunday as a “flagrant violation” of Kuwait’s sovereignty, describing them as a “clear breach of international law” which threaten to derail international efforts to reduce tensions in the region.

The Kuwaiti army said it intercepted two ballistic missiles with no damage or casualties.

Bahrain on Sunday said Iran had targeted it with “a number of ballistic missiles and drones,” an attack the Foreign Ministry called a “dangerous escalation.”

The attack shows Iran has “a deliberate policy and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression against Bahrain’s sovereignty and the security of its citizens and residents,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said earlier it targeted US facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation for US airstrikes on Iranian sites Saturday. Bahrain had activated sirens multiple times early Sunday local time and told residents to head to a safe place.

Bahrain said Iran’s attacks constitute a threat to all states in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, pointing to a joint defense agreement among them.

Meanwhile, the General Command of the Bahrain Defense Force said its air defenses had “successfully intercepted and destroyed a number of the treacherous Iranian aerial attacks.”

It urged residents not to approach debris or suspicious objects that may be found in the wake of the Iranian attack.

All branches of Bahrain’s armed forces are at the highest level of alert, it said.

A damaged residential building in Muharraq Governorate, Bahrain, on Sunday.

A residential building in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain suffered heavy damage in an Iranian attack overnight, its Interior Ministry said Sunday.

No one was killed, the ministry said.

It posted pictures of what appears to be the penthouse of a multistory residential block in ruins, with missing walls and collapsed ceilings, in the tiny country’s Muharraq governorate.

Iran on Sunday local time said US airstrikes on the country a day earlier were a “clear violation” of the June 18 ceasefire memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran.

Earlier, US Central Command said US Navy and Air Force jets struck 10 Iranian military targets in and near the Strait of Hormuz after what it said was an Iranian attack on a commercial ship in the strait.

After those US strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted US facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait with missiles and drones.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms its determination to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity against U.S. military aggression,” the Foreign Ministry statement said Sunday.