The US military has launched new strikes on Iran after President Donald Trump said US forces would hit the country “hard” as Tehran has taken “too long to make a deal” to end the war.<\/p>\n
The US Central Command (Centcom) said it began “additional self-defense strikes” on Wednesday against “multiple targets in Iran”. It added: “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression.” <\/p>\n
Both sides have targeted military and surveillance sites this week in a marked escalation of tit-for-tat airstrikes.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, a US helicopter was downed in an attack that was blamed on Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded by targeting US bases across the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Explosions have also been heard on the island of Qeshm in the Gulf, as well as a number of other cities, including Bandar Abbas and Sirik.<\/p>\n
Responding to the latest strikes, Iran’s top military command said any ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted, a crucial shipping channel off southern Iran.<\/p>\n
“The Strait of Hormuz has been completely closed to all types of vessels, including commercial ships,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hours before the attack was launched, Trump had warned: “We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.”<\/p>\n
Trump wrote on Truth Social that Iranian leaders have “taken too long to negotiate a deal”, while the Iranian foreign ministry accused the US of “damaging the diplomatic process through the contradictory message it sends”.<\/p>\n
In response to Trump’s comments Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran “will stand firm against any pressure or threat”.<\/p>\n
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth later said bombs would be “dropping on key facilities in Iran”.<\/p>\n
Hegseth said Iran had been given a chance to make a deal but had not taken it, and Trump had said Iran would be attacked again if no peace deal was secured.<\/p>\n
In April, the US and Iran agreed a ceasefire that was initially meant to last for two weeks. Both sides have since exchanged intermittent fire, without returning to full-scale hostilities.<\/p>\n
However, recent efforts to broker negotiations between Washington and Tehran have stalled and attacks have ramped up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US military has launched new strikes on Iran after President Donald Trump said US forces would hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-632015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}