The United States completed an eighth consecutive night of strikes on Iran at 1.30pm on Sunday, Australian time, and within hours Iran had answered with missile attacks on American bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, as the deaths of two US service members in Jordan hardened both sides against the off-ramps still nominally on the table.
Central Command said the latest wave hit Iranian coastal surveillance and air defence facilities, maritime capabilities, and missile and drone storage sites, and was "designed to further degrade Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched attacks against American service members in Jordan". Iranian media placed hits near Sirik and on Qeshm Island in Hormozgan province, and near Shadegan in Khuzestan.
The Jordan attack is the war's new hinge. CENTCOM confirmed on Saturday that two US service members were killed in action on Friday when Iranian ballistic missiles struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base near al-Azraq, with one more missing and four medevacked to Jordanian hospitals and since discharged. They are the first Americans killed by Iranian fire since March; Al Jazeera on Sunday put the US toll at 16 killed and more than 430 wounded since the war began in February. Donald Trump called the deaths "a very sad thing" in an interview with NewsNation, adding: "It's in service to our country."
Iran's response arrived through Sunday, local time. Its missiles struck an ammunition depot at Camp al-Adiri and radar sites at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, where authorities also reported a fire at a power and water plant, and came in waves against Bahrain, with one missile fired toward Aqaba in Jordan. Iran's army called the barrage the 17th phase of Operation Saeqeh, and the Revolutionary Guard claimed it had blocked two ships attempting what it called an "unsafe route" through the strait. Iran's health ministry said on Saturday that at least 50 people had been killed and more than 500 injured in US strikes since July 6, figures that have not been independently verified. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, writing on X after three villagers died in a strike on the Bandar Khamir Bridge, said: "We will never allow their pure blood to be in vain."
The June peace framework is now suspended in all but name. "The US has violated and suspended all its commitments within the framework of the Islamabad MoU," Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Saturday. Asked about Iran stepping away from the memorandum, Trump said: "I couldn't care less." Negotiators were still expected in Oman as of Sunday, on the American account of it. Commerce through the strait, the channel for roughly a fifth of the world's oil, has been running at around a tenth of its normal volume, with the American blockade of Iranian ports back in force since July 14, and Brent settled at US$88.10 a barrel on Friday, up 4.6 per cent and 14 per cent for the week, with WTI at US$82.49.
Canberra has still issued no new statement on the resumed war; Foreign Minister Penny Wong's most recent public comments, from July 10, called for de-escalation and a return of stability to energy markets. As of Sunday night, Australian time, the strait remains shut in practice, the Islamabad framework holds on paper only, and a ninth night of strikes would arrive before dawn Monday, Iranian time.
