United States Central Command said early Tuesday that its forces had conducted what it described as self-defence strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in southern Iran, hitting two small boats engaged in laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz and a surface-to-air missile site outside the port of Bandar Abbas. The operation, CENTCOM said, was a direct response to roughly 24 hours of drone, missile and small-boat activity directed at US aircraft and naval assets in the strait.
Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes within hours as “a clear violation” of the ceasefire agreed in April and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences.” Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement that “the Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered” but offered no immediate timetable or geography for any response.
Captain Tim Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesman, said the strikes were “deliberately limited and precise” and stopped short of striking Iranian regular military or nuclear-related sites. Two US defence officials told reporters at the Pentagon that the IRGC vessels had been observed deploying naval mines along approaches used by commercial tankers, and that the strike on the Bandar Abbas SAM site was carried out only after the battery had locked onto US aircraft transiting the strait.
The timing is delicate. An Iranian delegation led by deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi was scheduled to land in Doha later Tuesday for a fresh round of indirect talks aimed at converting last week’s memorandum of understanding into a 60-day operational ceasefire. Qatari foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said the talks would proceed as planned, but added that the strikes had “made the room considerably smaller.”
On markets, the response was sharp. Brent crude, which had drifted lower late last week on optimism over a deal, jumped more than 3 percent to settle at $99.58 a barrel; West Texas Intermediate, by contrast, fell on US supply considerations and closed near $93.89. Tanker insurance brokers in London said war-risk surcharges on cargoes transiting the strait had risen another half-point overnight.
The deal framework under discussion in Doha would keep the strait open for 60 days under no-toll terms, with Iran agreeing to clear the mines it has deployed and to allow free passage of commercial shipping. In return, sanctions on Iranian oil exports would be partially eased and frozen Iranian assets would begin to be released into escrow accounts. The fate of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme has been pushed into a separate working track scheduled to begin in late June.
Tuesday’s strikes mark the first publicly confirmed kinetic action by either side since the ceasefire took effect, and US officials acknowledge they raise the bar for what counts as a breach. “Iran says we breached it; we say they breached it twenty-four hours earlier,” one senior administration official said. “The MOU we are trying to convert into a real ceasefire does not, today, have a working enforcement mechanism. That is exactly what Doha is for.”
Inside the Iranian leadership, the strikes are likely to strengthen the hand of figures who have argued that the United States is using the ceasefire to entrench its naval presence in the Gulf rather than wind it down. President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has staked political capital on the talks, said in a brief statement that Iran would “remain at the table” but that “each act of aggression chips away at the foundation we are building together.”
In Washington, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Jim Risch and ranking member Chris Coons issued a rare joint statement supporting CENTCOM’s action but urging the administration to keep the Doha track open. A meeting of the National Security Council’s deputies committee was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to review options if Iran retaliates.