By Nayera Abdallah, Tala Ramadan and Ahmed Elimam
DUBAI, July 9 (Reuters) – Iranian armed forces launched attacks on U.S. military infrastructure in Gulf states on Thursday following U.S. strikes on Iran’s southern coastal and eastern provinces, putting further strain on a three-week-old ceasefire agreement.
The attacks came on the day that Iran buries its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the shrine of Mashhad, in the culmination of a week of mass funeral processions and rallies. Khamenei was killed in a U.S. airstrike on the first day of the war on February 28.
Khamenei’s body was carried by truck slowly through crammed streets towards the Shrine of Imam Reza. Black-clad mourners waved Iranian flags, photographs of the late leader and red placards with revolutionary slogans.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said the U.S. attacks and intervention in redirecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz were disrupting the waterway’s gradual reopening.
The Guards said the number of vessels transiting the strait under Iranian supervision had recovered to about 50% of pre-war levels over the past two weeks, adding that permission was being granted only to ships using routes designated by Tehran.
Any further U.S. intervention will draw a “crushing response”, the Guards said.
The U.S. military said on Wednesday its latest strikes were aimed at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open after it said Iranian forces had struck three tankers in the area. The assault came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed the interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”.
While Iran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, analysts say Tehran uses such actions to gain leverage in negotiations.
Oil prices, which had spiked amid concerns over the impact of the renewed attacks on shipping and global supplies, fell back on Thursday as investors weighed whether the flare-up was tactical and temporary or might augur a complete collapse in the ceasefire.
IRAN SAYS PERIMETER OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT HIT
Iranian officials said the U.S. attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on July 8 and 9, state media reported. Fars said one U.S. strike had hit a rail bridge used for trade with Russia and China.
Several explosions were heard on Thursday morning in Iran’s Bushehr province and in Bandar Abbas, a port city on Iran’s south coast, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Bushehr is home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant and a local official later told state media that a U.S. projectile had hit the perimeter area of the facility. The perimeter was already hit several times during the current conflict before an April 8 ceasefire.
U.S. strikes also hit a military site and a fishing dock in Bushehr province, its deputy governor said.
TARGETING U.S. MILITARY IN QATAR, KUWAIT, BAHRAIN
Iran’s army said in a statement released by state media that it had launched attacks at U.S. Patriot systems with drones in Kuwait, an early warning site in Qatar (satellite antenna) and a fuel storage of the U.S. army in Bahrain.
Kuwait said its armed forces had engaged with a cruise missile, three ballistic missiles and 10 drones in its airspace, and that one person had been injured from falling shrapnel.
Sirens also sounded in Jordan on Thursday after missiles launched from Iran were detected in Jordanian airspace, the state news agency reported. Eight missiles were intercepted, with no injuries or damage reported, it said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards later said Iran had fired 10 ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Azraq military base, which is used by U.S. forces, and also a U.S. military control center in the Middle East, without elaborating.
Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the region and has often mediated between Washington and its adversaries including Tehran, condemned attacks on commercial shipping but also called for a return to diplomacy.
The Strait of Hormuz handled about a fifth of global oil supplies before the war. Tehran has since taken effective control of the strait, allowing it to force a stalemate in its confrontation with the world’s most powerful military.
“The U.S. has yet to learn that bullying and breaking its commitments no longer come without a cost. Let me be clear: If you strike, you will be struck back,” Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on X.
“The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened only under Iranian arrangements, not through U.S. threats.”
‘RETRIBUTION’
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday its forces had struck approximately 90 Iranian military targets, including air defence systems, coastal surveillance assets, and missile and drone storage sites.
“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
However, the U.S. leader, who was attending a NATO summit in Turkey, also said he did not think the latest military strikes would escalate into a full-fledged conflict with Iran.
“Anything that happens is going to be over very quickly … and will only make it safer, including for oil,” he told reporters in Ankara.
Asked before the NATO summit on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding with Iran was over, Trump said: “It’s a very interesting question. To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them.”
(Reporting by Reuters reportingWriting by Gareth Jones, Editing by Alexandra Hudson, William Maclean)
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