The United Arab Emirates was forced to engage its air defences on Friday after Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at targets inside the Gulf state, the most serious widening of the seventy-day war since a tenuous ceasefire was declared a month ago. The UAE's Ministry of Defence said two missiles and three drones had been intercepted and that three people were wounded by falling debris.
The strikes followed a brief but intense naval clash on Thursday in which Iranian forces attacked three United States Navy destroyers transiting the Strait of Hormuz with anti-ship missiles, drones and small assault boats. US Central Command said all the threats were destroyed and that "self-defence strikes" had been launched in response against Iranian ports and small craft, including reported explosions on Qeshm Island.
Iran accused Washington of breaking the ceasefire by targeting two ships near the strait and bombing civilian areas along its southern coast. State media said air defence batteries had intercepted incoming drones and that several small boats had been lost. Tehran did not directly claim the missile and drone attack on the UAE, though officials in the Gulf were unequivocal in attributing it to Iranian forces.
President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, called the destroyer skirmish "just a love tap" and insisted that the ceasefire negotiated in early April was still in effect. He warned, however, that the United States would "knock them out a lot harder, and a lot more violently" if Iran refused to sign a formal peace deal whose latest draft was delivered to Tehran last week through Pakistani mediators.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was awaiting Iran's response to the proposal on Friday. The American draft would declare hostilities over and open a thirty-day window to negotiate uranium enrichment limits, sanctions relief and a permanent arrangement for the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne crude transits.
Brent crude rose to $100.45 a barrel in London before settling near $100, and equity markets in New York retreated from records set earlier in the week. The UAE's defence ministry urged residents to remain indoors and not to approach debris from the interceptions; Dubai International Airport diverted several inbound flights for a brief period before resuming normal operations.
Diplomats in Muscat and Islamabad continued to shuttle revised language between the two governments through the day. Officials briefed on the talks said the Hormuz clause remained the most intractable point: Tehran has demanded a new mechanism that would replace what it calls an American "counter-blockade", while Washington has insisted on the strait's "complete, immediate and safe opening" before any sanctions relief flows.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said inspectors had not been granted access to two declared enrichment sites for nine consecutive days. European foreign ministers were due to meet in Brussels on Saturday to coordinate a response to any breakdown of the truce, with Britain, France and Germany weighing whether to formally trigger the snapback of pre-2015 nuclear-related sanctions.