Iran attacked ships in Hormuz and struck the UAE again as hardliners threatened that European bases could become legitimate targets. Tehran also issued its own Strait of Hormuz navigation map, warning US Navy ships and oil tankers from crossing.
Iran has unleashed a new wave of missile and drone attacks across the Gulf and attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz, while warning the US and Europe of military action.
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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which appears to be making the decisions in Tehran, unveiled a new plan for transit on its terms through the waterway.
The plan could, in practice, expand the IRGC’s monitoring and control zone beyond the Strait of Hormuz to areas as far as the UAE's Fujairah, a key transit route used by the UAE to bypass the strait for oil exports, and brought forces to the brink of confrontation with CENTCOM forces.
Following this move and the launch of what US President Donald Trump described as “Project Freedom,” reports emerged on Monday afternoon of warning shots fired towards the US Navy.
Trump said that several IRGC fast boats had been sunk, while the head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, said US military helicopters had sunk six Iranian small boats that were targeting civilian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Admiral Cooper said the US military cleared a pathway in the Strait of Hormuz that is free of any Iranian mines for ships to resume navigation, as the US Navy is setting up a “defensive umbrella” that includes US helicopters and fighter planes to protect the freighters leaving the strait.
Meanwhile, Iran’s attacks on Fujairah and targets in the UAE have drawn widespread condemnation from the international community, particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
European leaders who have travelled to Yerevan for the European Political Community summit have also condemned Iran’s destabilising actions in the Persian Gulf and reaffirmed their support for the UAE.
The United Arab Emirates said it had engaged 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran on Monday.
A residential building housing employees in Oman was also targeted on Monday, officials said, although they did not provide details of the incident.
Iran can strike Europe, hardline politician claims
Hossein Shariatmadari, a hardline politician close to late Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed in US-Israeli strikes, wrote in the conservative Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan on Tuesday that "the military bases of those European countries that will be placed at America’s disposal can and must become legitimate and lawful targets for our military attacks.”
Tehran's leading conservative, who has previously taken tough positions on the nuclear deal and any agreement with the US, went on to say that “Europe is extremely vulnerable to any potential attacks by the Islamic Republic and has virtually zero capacity to withstand them.”
In his column in Kayhan, Shariatmadari wrote that European countries "know we can hit them, and that when we do, we hit them hard”.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — who led the Iranian delegation at the only round of talks held in Islamabad and whom some had seen as Trump’s preferred option for a deal — posted a message on X speaking of the “consolidation of a new equation” in the Strait of Hormuz.
Claiming that the continuation of the current situation is intolerable for the United States while Iran “has not even started yet”, Ghalibaf stated that “the security of shipping and energy transit under the control of the United States and its allies has been jeopardised by the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade.
"Their mischief will, however, soon be curtailed," he added.
Explosion in south of Iran
Meanwhile, field reports from inside Iran also point to increasing tensions.
On Tuesday morning, the Mehr news agency reported a fire at Dayyer port in Bushehr province.
Quoting Majid Omrani, head of the Dayyer port fire brigade, the agency wrote that “at present two fibreglass commercial dhows have caught fire and firefighters are working to bring the blaze under control.”
He said the cause of the incident would not be known until firefighting operations were fully completed and that further information would be released in due course.
Meanwhile, a number of residents in southern Iran who are struggling to access the internet have posted messages on social media reporting explosions in Bandar Abbas and on Qeshm island.
The Telegram channel Vahid Online also reported receiving messages from several residents of Hormozgan province saying they had heard explosions.
Euronews could not independently verify these reports.