AJ
🔹 During Operation Freedom, and the subsequent Secret Freedom Project, the US attempted to move multiple ships out of the Strait of Hormuz under the cover of darkness, which led to ‘love-taps,’ because the US were provoking Iran.
🔹 After President Trump admitted the operation had continued, the US was in need of other options to evacuate the remaining vessels from the Strait of Hormuz, creating an MoU which reopened the Strait for 60 days, while tasking the International Maritime Organisation with the evacuations.
🔹 During this past week, at least 1,000 seafarers left the Strait of Hormuz thanks to the MoU, as well as understandings in the Strait, which included captains and ship owners to contact the IRGC to arrange safe transit.
🔹 However, Oman decided to open a second route towards the end of the week, without the permission of Iran or the IRGC, which led to an attack on a vessel on Friday, followed by an exchange of fire, with the US attacking Iran on Friday night, and Iran retaliating against Bahrain on Saturday morning.
🔹 Another vehicle attempted to transit the Strait on an unapproved route on Saturday, once again leading Iran to send drones to intercept the vessel, with at least one drone reported to have hit the cabin area of the ship, but no damage or injuries had been caused.
🔹 However, the US wasn’t taking attacks on vessels for granted, launching a retaliatory strike in Iranian territory shortly after midnight, leading reports from IRIB and Mehr News of several explosions around the Tahrouyi village in the area of Sirik (suggesting the attack was on the Tahrouyi port), and further preliminary reports saying that the naval base at Sirik had been targeted.
🔹 An IRIB correspondent in Sirik, citing a military source, confirmed several projectiles had struck a telecommunications tower in Tahrouyi village near Sirik, while Axios cited a US official, stating the US military was conducting strikes in the area of the Strait in retaliation for the Iranian attack on a commercial tanker on Saturday morning.
🔹 Fresh explosions continued to be heard along the Sirik coastline, with residents in Qeshm also starting to report explosions to Fars News Agency, while Fox News claimed it was a larger strike than Friday night: “Iran had a chance to stop shooting… and they didn’t… instead, they attacked another ship in Hormuz this morning.”
🔹 CENTCOM said US forces carried out the additional strikes against multiple Iranian targets in response to the drone attack by Iran on the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiku near the Strait, confirming that US aircraft engaged Iranian surveillance infrastructure, communications systems, air defence sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities.
🔹 Around one hour after the strikes were first announced, Fox News were told by a US defence official, and CENTCOM themselves also reported, that the US strikes on Iranian targets had ended, announcing that fighter jets and the US Navy had conducted strikes on 10 Iranian targets located around the Strait.
🔹 President Trump refused to accept that it was the vessels operating without accordance with the IRGC after including in the MoU that the IRGC and Oman would be responsible for the administration and transit in the Strait, confirming Iran was attacked, claiming it was because Iran broke the ceasefire agreement.
🔹 “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” Trump said, adding: “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist.”
🔹 Alerts started to ring out around Bahrain and Kuwait soon after, as Iran retaliated, and impacts were recorded at Issa Air Base in Bahrain, along with Ali Al-Salem Base in Kuwait, both believed to have been used in the night’s attacks by the IRGC.
🔹 IRGC announced joint missile-drone operations against US positions in Kuwait and Bahrain overnight on Sunday in response to US ceasefire violations, IRIB News reported, citing an IRGC Public Relations officer.
🔹 During the Iranian attack, eight ‘important US targets,’ including Ali Al-Salem Airbase in Kuwait and the US Navy’s 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain, stating that the betrayal and violation of treaties were becoming part of the United States’ nature, having attacked five coastal sites in Iran under the ‘pretext of confronting the Iranian Navy’ on Sunday morning.
🔹 According to the Islamabad MoU, regarding traffic arrangements in the Strait with Iran, from now on, violating ships will be dealt with by greater force than before, and any potential aggression by ‘the enemy’ for any reason, even if it is like last night’s attacks on ‘unimportant targets,’ will have a devastating response.
🔹 “The enemy must know that violating the ceasefire is contrary to Paragraph One of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and will lead to a complete halt in negotiations,” the statement said.
🔹 IRGC’s Navy Commander issued a statement saying that America’s blind strikes on Sirik didn’t solve the puzzle of Iran’s dominance over the Strait, noting that strikes on violators remind the rest of the vessels of the clear passage route, and added that the account of US bases in the region is separate, which will experience hell in the coming days.
🔹 Later in the morning, mobile phone sirens were alerting residents in Bahrain of an IRGC attack, while locals reported hearing an explosion around 15 minutes before the alerts reacted to the incoming drones, although US fighter jets were active in UAE airspace intercepting the drones, and around five minutes later, an all clear was given.
