Trump again declares ceasefire over but says US has agreed to talks with Iran

Qatari negotiators have travelled to Iran to meet officials there in an effort to de-escalate the situation and create conditions for US-Iran talks to resume, a diplomat with knowledge of the visit told CNN.

The trip was planned in coordination with the United States, the source said.

Friday saw a lull in fighting after escalating strikes threatened to derail the US-Iran agreement. Mediators are trying to bring the two sides back to the table.

A US official told CNN earlier that the military was deliberately striking and then pausing to avoid escalation and to let diplomacy work.

After a sharp escalation between the US and Iran that threatened to undo the ceasefire agreement, two Israeli sources say the Trump administration doesn’t want Israel involved in the fighting over concerns of losing control of the conflict.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

On Thursday, Israel’s defense minister said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was ready to resume the war against Iran once again, even if it had to do it alone.

“The IDF is on high alert and prepared to resume the campaign, regain air superiority, and carry out an independent Israeli strike against Iran to eliminate threats — even for a third time,” said Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the IDF’s newest pilots. “If we have to return, we will return with even greater force.”

Nevertheless, one of the sources said the prevailing Israeli assessment is that Trump does not want a return to a full-scale war and that the most he may be willing to do is to reinstate the naval blockade on Iranian ports.

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on July 9.

Iran sees the Strait of Hormuz as its biggest wartime gain — and appears determined to hold on to it, even at the risk of the ceasefire agreement unraveling.

Tehran’s view, experts say, is that the Trump administration is trying to return the waterway to prewar shipping levels without acknowledging Iran’s newfound authority there.

Iran has said ships traversing the strait can only follow the route it has assigned. The latest round of fighting began after the US retaliated against Iran for firing at vessels that did not comply with its directives.

At the heart of the renewed violence are competing interpretations of the fifth point of the memorandum of understanding (MoU). That section says Iran will “make arrangements… for the safe passage of commercial vessels” and engage with Oman “to define the future administration” of the strait. But it does not explicitly grant Iran exclusive authority over shipping there.

The ambiguities in the MoU may have helped end the fighting at first, Crisis Group notes. But they soon became a liability as both sides began interpreting the text in their own interests.

To prevent the rest of the ceasefire process from unraveling, the two sides must stop trying to impose their interpretation of the fifth point on each other — if only to calm the situation while negotiations continue, the think tank says. That would require Iran to stop firing at vessels and the US to stop pushing for alternative routes, at least for now.

Mediators say they are trying to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table. There has been no sign so far of a compromise, but the guns appear to have fallen silent — at least for today.

A masked man seen at the funeral has prompted questions about who he is

0:49 • Source: CNN

A masked man seen at the funeral has prompted questions about who he is

0:49

A figure with an obscured face stood among a row of carefully selected men chosen to lead the funeral prayer over the body of Iran’s slain leader, Ali Khamenei, on Thursday. The man’s mysterious attire sparked a buzz on social media, with users theorizing whether the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had concealed himself to attend his father’s burial in Mashhad.

It was yet another theory among many that surfaced during the weeklong grand funeral ceremony for Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli strikes coordinated with the United States in late February.

In the week of ceremony for Ali Khamenei, AI videos showing Mojtaba Khamenei in civilian clothing and a black baseball cap walking among the mourners in Tehranis to bid farewell to his father. Pro-regime journalists prophesized that he was among the crowd at the shrine while others shared pictures of a clean-shaven man in a black cap, claiming it was the ayatollah in disguise.

Now, the latest cause of mystery is a man wearing a black baseball cap and what appears to be a large mask covering his face, shown in pictures shown by the state broadcaster. He stood prominently among the select group at a private event held for Khamenei’s family and close friends on Thursday, led by another one of his sons, Mostafa.

Social media accounts scrutinized the man’s build, glasses, and height, comparing them to those of the new supreme leader in an effort to determine whether it was him who was concealed behind the mask. Mojtaba Khamenei has yet to make a public appearance since his appointment four months ago.

Even as Iran’s precarious political situation grows more turbulent amid deep internal divisions over diplomacy with the US, the Islamic Republic has chosen to keep its new leader concealed, offering no further proof of life beyond written statements attributed to him.

This approach signals that the regime is willing to keep the state’s top authority shrouded in mystery, despite the speculation it is causing.

His absence has left some doubting his capacity to lead, with others even suggesting that he may be dead.

A customer at a gas station in Pasadena, California, on Tuesday.

The average price for regular gas in the United States rose another 4 cents overnight to a little over $3.88 a gallon, according to AAA. After rising 5 cents Thursday, gas prices are now 9 cents a gallon more expensive than they were just two days ago.

That may seem a bit dramatic considering oil prices are up just 6% since the United States and Iran started exchanging fire in the Persian Gulf again. But that’s how gas prices work: They rise like a rocket and fall like a feather.

Gas prices have fallen very gradually since hitting their wartime peak of $4.56 in mid-May. That’s because when prices rise, gas station owners tend to sell less of it and keep retail prices much closer to wholesale prices than usual — making less profit. When prices start falling, station owners gradually reduce the price to make up for lost profit.

And when oil prices rise, in anticipation of rising gas prices, station owners start raising prices quickly.

For more on why you pay what you pay at the gas pump, check out this CNN Explains video, where we interview a gas station owner about how he sets prices each day.

The Strait of Hormuz is loaded with mines (which are gradually being cleared) — so if you want to get in and out, you have two options: hug Oman’s northern coast or use Iran’s designated shipping lane.

Iran really wants ships to use its lane — targeting vessels on the Omanian side with drones to get its message across, which is what started this whole flareup in tit-for-tat attacks this week.

Shipping companies appear to be complying, at least for now. Of the 22 verified transits through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, just one vessel crossed via the Omanian channel, according to Kpler, which uses transponder and satellite data to track ships.

To note: Some ships are turning off their transponders and making a break for it, so it’s not clear exactly how many vessels are going in and out of the strait. But 22 crossings is way down from around 40 to 50 over the past few weeks and significantly lower than the over 100 transits that took place every day before the war started.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, center, walks along a street in Tehran on May 31, 2019.

Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic has been a system built around the centrality of one man: the Supreme Leader.

The first person to hold the position, Ruhollah Khomeini was a larger-than-life figure who came to power off the back of a coalition of Islamist and leftist revolutionaries.

His successor, Ali Khamenei, didn’t have the same religious credentials but was steeped in the power structure of the young republic, having been president and overseeing the war with Iraq.

In the 37 years that he ruled as supreme leader, not a week went by that he didn’t address crowds or meet state officials or foreign delegations.

He was ever-present with his pronouncements on all matters of Iranian life and deeply involved in building out the political and economic power networks that has kept the regime in power even when he, as its top leader, was assassinated.
But now, the Islamic Republic has entered a new phase, one in which the top of the pyramid is nowhere to be seen or even heard.

Mojtaba Khamenei’s no-show at his father’s funeral might be down to legitimate security concerns the regime has about his safety but it will undoubtedly feed into the wider question regime supporters and opponents have been asking every day for the past four months: who is really calling the shots?

At some point, one would assume, the millions of faithful who took to the streets this week will need to actually see the leader whose authority is supposed to permeate through the system.

The longer he remains in absentia the looser his grasp will be as the system his father built was so tightly connected to the top that without it, it risks unravelling and perhaps ushering a new form of governance in Iran.

When Tehran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes by the United States and Israel on February 28, the Lloyd’s market sprang into action. Overnight, the risks of transiting the strait skyrocketed, and insurance premiums needed to reflect that. War insurance policies were swiftly cancelled to be reinstated at much higher prices.

Insurance underwriters are once again scrutinizing prices and “individual risk factors” following renewed strikes across the Middle East this week, said David Smith, head of marine at London broker McGill and Partners.

In the immediate aftermath of the US-Israeli strikes, rates for ships passing through the strait soared to as high as 10% of a vessel’s value from roughly 0.25%-0.5% before the war, according to Marcus Baker, the global head of marine and cargo for insurance broker Marsh.

On an oil tanker worth $100 million, “that’s a $10 million voyage,” he noted. Hull war rates, which cover a ship’s physical structure against damage or loss caused by conflict, have since pulled back to 1-3% of a ship’s value.

At the same time, some underwriters are offering “no-claims bonuses,” returning half the premium to ship owners if their vessels sail through the strait without incident, Baker told CNN.

The Hormuz crisis is a high-stakes affair for insurers. War insurance premiums will “track exactly what is happening geopolitically… almost on an hourly basis,” said Smith of McGill and Partners.

Underwriters insuring ships wishing to transit Hormuz want to price the policy just six hours ahead of the voyage, down from the usual 24-48 hours, according to Smith. Once issued, policies are valid for just three to seven days before needing to be renegotiated.

Read more here.

Thousands of people gather to participate in the funeral ceremony for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Mashhad, Iran on July 9.

Diplomacy is happening behind the scenes to ease tensions with Iran, a US official told CNN, after exchanges of fire in the past several days derailed the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.

Pakistan and Qatar are also working to bring the two countries back to the negotiating table, regional sources told CNN.

Meanwhile, Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been buried following days of funeral proceedings, where one figure was noticeably absent: Khamenei’s son and new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

If you’re just joining us, here’s the latest:

CNN’s Pamela Brown, Mostafa Salem, Sophia Saifi, Lauren Kent, Helen Regan, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Dana Karni, Avery Schmitz, Charbel Mallo and Aida Karimi contributed reporting.

Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was buried early Friday morning local time, according to a statement posted on his official X account.

The burial took place at the Imam Reza shrine in the city of Mashhad, where Khamenei was born. Khamenei’s family attended the private ceremony, which came after a dayslong public funeral attended by waves of mourners.

New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public during the funeral events.