US launches fresh strikes on Iranian targets after drone hits

The U.S. conducted a fresh round of strikes against multiple targets in Iran on Saturday, as a weekend of tit-for-tat attacks led both sides to claim violations of the ceasefire underpinning peace talks.

The first American strikes on Friday came in response to Tehran’s strike on a container ship on Thursday, but Iran then hit another ship carrying Qatari oil on Saturday.

“Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement posted on X. The U.S. hit Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and mine layer capabilities.

The back-and-forth extended fighting into a third day and risks slowing progress toward restoring shipping traffic in Hormuz to pre-war levels. Talks over the details of a memorandum of understanding to end the war were scheduled to resume Monday.

“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,” President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Iran claimed on Saturday that it had targeted U.S. sites in the Persian Gulf following U.S. strikes on its missile storage and radar installations on Friday. Those were in response to an Iranian drone hit on a container ship in Hormuz. An unnamed U.S. official told CNN after the U.S. strikes that the action didn’t constitute a return to major combat operations for now.

“Commercial vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz continue,” U.S. Central Command said. “U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.”

Bahrain said it had been targeted by Iranian drones and a ship in the Strait of Hormuz was struck on Saturday, adding fresh tension to the detente established in the wake of an interim U.S.-Iran peace deal signed earlier this month.

Bahrain’s foreign ministry said a number of Iranian drones targeted the country, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, early on Saturday morning, state-run BNA reported. Tehran has repeatedly targeted Bahrain and other Gulf states that host American military bases and thousands of troops since the U.S. and Israel launched the war in late February.

Meanwhile, a U.K. naval group on Saturday said a tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, though vessel-tracking data show that multiple ships continued to transit the waterway Saturday morning.

The Joint Maritime Information Center on Saturday raised the security threat in the Strait of Hormuz to “substantial” and published a warning area for potential mines spanning much of the usual transit route. It also said that the Omani route recommended by Western navies had been expanded to allow ships to transit in both directions simultaneously.

Tehran and Washington have traded accusations that the other party violated the ceasefire. Iran’s foreign ministry in a statement on Saturday called the U.S. attack “an explicit violation of the first paragraph of the Memorandum of Understanding” that the two countries signed earlier this month. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that it had struck U.S. sites in response, though it didn’t say which.

US Vice President JD Vance said that the U.S. had “honored” the deal.

“If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone,” he said on X on Friday. “But violence will be met with violence.”

Even as the broader U.S.-Iran deal suffered a setback, there was some progress on a key sticking point — Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and fight with Tehran-backed Hezbollah, which has been designated a terror group by the U.S. On Friday, the two countries and the U.S. signed an initial agreement aimed at paving the way for ending the conflict and ultimately reaching a peace settlement. By Saturday morning, however, Hezbollah’s chief Naim Qasem called the deal “null and void.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the Israel-Lebanon agreement an “historic event” but acknowledged that “many challenges still lie ahead.” Trump also spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Saturday and congratulated him for signing the agreement, Axios reported, citing U.S. and Lebanese officials.

Since signing a 60-day truce last week, Trump has said that he would resume military action against Iran if it violates the agreement’s terms, which provide for the flow of vessels through the vital strait and talks over its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The two sides continue to clash over key provisions of the deal, including whether Iran will impose tolls or other monetary costs on ships seeking to sail through Hormuz. Oman told European officials that vessels may ultimately have to be charged some fees, Bloomberg reported earlier.

Trump’s decision to attack demonstrates that he’s willing to use military force to maintain freedom of navigation in the strait. But Iran’s strikes have shown that it’s seeking to maintain control of the waterway, which was largely shut after the war began on Feb. 28, becoming its greatest point of leverage with the U.S. as its near closing roiled the global economy.

Tehran has repeatedly said that ships can’t pass Hormuz without its permission, and a handful of tankers turned around early on Thursday after reportedly getting warnings from the Iranian Navy.

Central Command said in its statement Friday that it would “continue to provide safe passage coordination and support to commercial vessels transiting the strait.”

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(Skylar Woodhouse, Yash Roy and Alex Longley contributed to this report.)