STRAIT SHOOTOUT

Trump’s Peace Plan Crumbles in Alarming Escalation

The dramatic exchange of fire came as Trump tried to insist that efforts to end the conflict are still underway.

The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire on multiple fronts even as Donald Trump insisted that negotiations were still on track.

American and Iranian forces launched missiles, drones, and retaliatory strikes on Tuesday after the U.S. attacked an oil tanker bound for Iran.

In a statement, U.S. Central Command said it had disabled the unladen tanker attempting to reach Iran after the crew “ignored repeated warnings.” A U.S. aircraft ultimately fired a Hellfire missile into the vessel’s engine room, preventing it from reaching an Iranian port.

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Hours later, CENTCOM reported a new round of Iranian missile and drone attacks, saying U.S. forces had “successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones” and that all of the projectiles “failed to hit their intended targets.”

The command also said U.S. forces had shot down three drones headed toward “civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters” before carrying out what it described as “self-defense strikes” on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps offered a different account, claiming it had targeted the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and a U.S. vessel in retaliation for the Qeshm strike.

The latest exchange came as Trump pushed back on reports that negotiations between Washington and Tehran had stalled.

MIA

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“Fake News Reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the U.S.A., stopped speaking a few days ago are false and erroneous,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he added.

Nevertheless, Trump acknowledged uncertainty about where the talks were headed.

“Where they lead, one never knows,” he wrote before issuing a fresh ultimatum to Tehran.

“It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!”

The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.

ANOTHER ONE GONE

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated Trump’s claims that a deal was within reach when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, telling lawmakers that an agreement could happen “today,” “tomorrow,” or “next week.”

Rubio also insisted that “the war is over” which drew an incredulous response from Sen. Cory Booker.

“The war is not over,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

“Every day he tweets out, ‘Oh, we’ve obliterated them, we’ve annihilated them, they’re gonna surrender.’ But yet we still find ourselves spending billions of dollars a week on war abroad.”

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Rubio said Iran had agreed to discuss aspects of its nuclear program that it had refused to negotiate just a month ago, describing the shift as a sign that diplomacy was making progress.

The comments came despite reports from Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency that Tehran had halted indirect talks with Washington over Israel’s military operations in Lebanon.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any ceasefire with the United States applied “on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

“Any violation of this ceasefire on one front shall be considered a violation of it across all fronts.”

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Olivia RalphBreaking News Reporter

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