The U.S. has launched fresh strikes against Iran just days after President Donald Trump suggested that a breakthrough deal was near.
The U.S. military carried out strikes against an Iranian military site that posed a threat to American troops and commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official told Reuters.
A U.S. official responded to the Daily Beast after U.S. Central Command was contacted for comment, saying, “Today, U.S. Central Command Forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone. These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire.”
The Pentagon referred the Daily Beast to CENTCOM when reached for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier, Iranian state-linked media reported that three explosions were heard to the east of Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port city along the Strait of Hormuz, according to CNN.
The new escalation follows U.S. strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, when the U.S. reportedly sank two boats belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that were laying mines and struck a missile launch site near Bandar Abbas.
While the U.S. said Monday’s strikes were in “self-defense,” Iran called them a violation of the countries’ fragile ceasefire.
The commander-in-chief accused Iran during his Cabinet meeting on Wednesday of stalling the talks in an effort to “outwait” him in hopes that political pressure from the November midterms would make him more willing to accept a peace deal more favorable to Tehran.
“They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, ‘we’ll outwait him, he’s got the midterms,’” he said, before adding, “I don’t care about the midterms.”
However, Trump, 79, also insisted that the U.S. was “doing very well” in talks with Iran, despite the deal remaining elusive and the president blowing past the multiple timelines he’s set for himself.
“They are starting to give us the things that they have to give us, and if they do, that’s great,” Trump said vaguely.
“And if they won’t, then the man on my left is going to finish them off,” Trump said, acknowledging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seated next to him, whom he had earlier said, “loves war.”
The president has repeatedly zigzagged between claiming a deal to end the war is within reach and lobbing threats against Iran.
On Saturday, Trump claimed that a peace agreement had been “largely negotiated” between the United States, Iran and other countries, and that “final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly.”
But the talks lost momentum Monday amid disagreements over Tehran’s nuclear program and demands for financial relief, mediators told The Wall Street Journal.
Trump on Wednesday brushed aside claims that a deal to end the three-month-old war would hand Iran and Oman, which sit on opposite sides of the Strait of Hormuz, oversight of shipping through the waterway.
“Nobody’s going to control it,” Trump said, before threatening Oman, a key U.S. ally in the region. “It’s international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that, they’ll be fine.”
The president said that the strait needed to be opened immediately, but argued that any deal that is reached is going to be “perfect.”
“I didn’t do this to get a crummy agreement,” he added.
