Iran fired missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain but failed to hit their targets, with two of those fired at Kuwait falling apart en route, while those aimed at Bahrain were intercepted, the US Central Command said.
The US military said on Tuesday it launched strikes on an Iranian facility in response to Iranian strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain which failed to hit their targets.
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Two of those fired at Kuwait fell apart en route, while US and Bahraini forces intercepted the missiles aimed at Bahrain, the US Central Command said.
US Central Command said it responded with strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
For Iran's part, its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain and another country in its attack, without naming Kuwait. It said it launched its attack in response to the US firing a missile into the engine room of another oil tanker trying to reach Iran despite the blockade.
The attacks happened after Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the US and Israel, according to media reports, although US President Donald Trump disputed the claim and said talks were continuing.
The reports from Iran, both believed to be close to the Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate-but-related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump says talks ‘going on continuously’
Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous".
“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. “Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a deal.'"
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching “a deal that’s acceptable".
Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it.
Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Israel and the US maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks, but reports of the phone call between Netanyahu and Trump on Sunday, where the US president was reported to have used expletives to berate the Israeli Prime MInister, revealed tensions.
Iran reportedly cut off communication with mediators facilitating the ceasefire talks over the recent escalation in hostilities in Lebanon and Israel's plan to expand operations to Beirut.