U.S. forces carried out strikes against Iran for a fourth day in a row and reimposed a naval blockade to prevent ships from sailing to or from the country’s ports.

While U.S. President Donald Trump backtracked on his threat to heavily tax ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, he warned he would expand U.S. strikes on Iran next week to target power plants and bridges if Tehran does not agree to a deal.

“Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the latest strikes were aimed at “degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping” in the strait, the key shipping channel for Gulf oil and gas where Tehran has repeatedly carried out attacks on civilian vessels.

– AFP

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington today, as the U.S. administration piles pressure on Baghdad to curb Iranian influence.

His visit comes against the backdrop of renewed military escalation between the United States and Iran, Iraq’s main allies.

Washington and Tehran’s enmity has long turned Iraq into a proxy battleground and left successive governments struggling to maintain a delicate balance between the two foes.

Mr. Zaidi arrived in Washington yesterday for his first international visit since assuming office — a week-long trip during which he will meet Mr. Trump, U.S. officials and representatives of oil companies.

– AFP

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stressed that Tehran remains prepared for “full-scale defence” should the U.S. betray the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two countries last month.

In an official Telegram post regarding his meeting with the Speaker of the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly, Ahmad Muzani, Ghalibaf asserted that Iran has “zero trust” in the US, a sentiment he said he communicated to American Vice President JD Vance during the recent peace negotiations.

“During the negotiations, I made it clear to the Vice President of the United States that we have zero trust in you. In my view, only those prepared for war can negotiate with the U.S. We have never ceased our preparations to defend our country. The moment the Americans betray any understanding, we are prepared for a full-scale defence; we will stand firmly against them and will claim the rights of the Iranian nation,” the post stated.

-ANI

The United States launched new strikes on Iran on Wednesday (July 8, 2026) after President Donald Trump vowed to hit “hard” following Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr. Trump, while ordering retaliation against Tehran, said he expected the latest military flare-up to end quickly and left the door open to more talks.

U.S. Central Command said the strikes were carried out to degrade the ability of Iranian forces “to threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows.

“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping,” CENTCOM said on X.

Iran’s Mehr news agency said explosions had been heard in the port cities of Bandar Abbas, Konarak and Chabahar.

Before ordering the latest strikes, Mr. Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was over, prompting mediators Pakistan and Qatar and the United Nations to call for de-escalation.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a flashpoint in the West Asia conflict, which began in late February with U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who is to be buried in his hometown of Mashhad on Thursday (July 9, 2026).

Tehran insists on controlling the strait, saying it will charge fees for passage and threatening to hit vessels that deviate from its authorised route.

Its military struck at least three ships in recent days, prompting extensive U.S. strikes against Iranian targets on Tuesday (July 7, 2026), followed by retaliatory attacks from Iran on Gulf countries.

“We’re gonna hit ’em hard tonight,” Mr. Trump said at a NATO summit in Ankara. “They violate the agreement every day.”

He added later, however, that “anything that happens is going to be over very quickly.”

Oil prices jumped eight percent after Mr. Trump’s earlier comments that the ceasefire was “over”.

‘Maximum restraint’

UN chief Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, called “on all parties to exercise maximum restraint” — as did Pakistan, a key mediator in the U.S.-Iran talks.

Iran said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Qatar’s Prime Minister had spoken over the phone on Wednesday (July 8, 2026) and “underscored the importance of using diplomatic means to resolve regional issues.”

Both the United States and Iran said they had hit dozens of targets in the initial wave of attacks.

Iranian state media reported a series of blasts in the coastal city of Bushehr, which hosts the country’s only civilian nuclear power plant and lies near Kharg island, the main oil terminal through which 90% of Iran’s crude exports transit.

Iranian state television said U.S. strikes killed eight military personnel.

CENTCOM said its forces had struck more than 80 targets on Tuesday, including Iranian air-defence systems, coastal radar sites and 60 IRGC small boats.

Tehran’s reply came quickly, with the Guards saying they hit dozens of U.S. military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain.

Kuwait said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones, while the Iranian army said it had also attacked U.S. forces at Sheikh Isa air base in Bahrain.

The latest attacks launched by Iran did not result in any American casualties or cause major damage to facilities, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday (July 8, 2026).

“All missiles and drones fired by Iran were intercepted or failed to cause major damage,” the official told AFP.

Nawal Saad, a Bahraini civil servant, lamented that “the spectre of war is looming once more,” saying “I do not want to go through that experience of fear and anxiety again.”

‘Seafarers stranded’

Oman, which sits on the other side of Hormuz from Iran, condemned the targeting of Bahrain and Kuwait as well as the strikes on ships, but without blaming Iran.

The former mediator has not blamed Iran for attacks throughout the war, in an effort to maintain its neutrality, which is being tested by talks with Tehran over the administration of Hormuz.

Washington wants free passage for ships while Iran is insisting on fees and has refused to allow vessels to pass through Omani waters.

All three vessels recently struck were sailing close to Oman, which had proposed a temporary transit corridor hugging its coastline.

Maritime traffic had tentatively resumed after Washington and Tehran signed the deal to end hostilities last month.

But almost 6,000 seafarers remain stranded in the area, International Maritime Organisation chief Arsenio Dominguez said Wednesday (July 8, 2026).

Published – July 09, 2026 03:09 am IST

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Majed Al Ansari. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The United States said on Monday (June 15, 2026) that ships will move toll-free through the Strait of Hormuz under an Iran peace deal signed by President Donald Trump, and insisted Tehran would have to fulfill its commitments before getting any economic benefits.

West Asia war LIVE

They included a possible $300 billion reconstruction fund for the war-battered country, but the release of funds will be “tied to performance,” a senior Trump administration official said in a call with reporters.

Mr. Trump, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf electronically signed the so-called memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Sunday (June 14, 2026), the officials said.

“The President wanted to sign it personally because he wanted to show his dedication to the process,” one of the U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity.

But Mr. Vance admitted the brief outline deal kicks the thorniest issues — especially Iran’s nuclear program — down the road.

“The MoU is about a page and a half, so it is a very general document,” Mr. Vance told CNN.

He later said on NBC that U.S. and international nuclear inspectors will be allowed back into Iran to help destroy its enriched uranium.

Mr. Vance will lead technical talks this week and attend a physical signing ceremony expected in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mr. Trump, attending the G7 summit in France, said the text would likely be released after Friday (June 15, 2026) — but the U.S. officials said it would be “put out in the next 24-48 hours.”

Hormuz normal in ‘couple of weeks’?

The signing will kick off a 60-day period in which Tehran and Washington will try to hammer out a full-scale peace deal.

“We want to put the nuclear discussions up front,” a U.S. official said on the call.

But the Strait of Hormuz bottleneck is an immediate priority due to the global economic effects from the spike in oil prices.

Mr. Vance told CNBC there was an understanding with Iran that the strait would reopen “in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations.”

Mr. Trump himself said the critical strait would be “completely open” from Friday (June 19, 2026) but added there was still “hunting” going on to ensure it was de-mined.

Shipping traffic should return to pre-war levels “over the next couple of weeks” but there had already been a “substantial increase in traffic,” the first U.S. official said.

However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday (June 15, 2026) that the deal would allow it to charge maritime service fees on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, rather than imposing “tolls.”

‘Zero’ funds released

Uncertainty also surrounds other key aspects of the deal, including Iran’s access to its frozen funds and relief from sanctions.

The issue is politically sensitive for Mr. Trump because he has alleged that a deal signed under Democrat Barack Obama — which Mr. Trump scrapped in 2018 — gave Tehran too much money.

“The very simple fact is zero dollars of frozen assets have been released by the United States or any other country,” the first U.S. official said.

“We discussed the possibility of releasing frozen funds, sanctions relief, a big $300 billion fund to rebuild their country, and all of these things are going to be tied to performance,” added the second official.

Mr. Vance said no U.S. taxpayer money — “they never get a dime” — will go to Iran under the deal and argued that Americans stand to benefit from lifting of sanctions against Iran by bringing it back into the international economy.

“There’s a lot of benefit there, not American money, but there’s a lot of economic prosperity that can flow from that,” Mr. Vance told Fox News late Monday (June 15, 2026).

As part of a flurry of interviews to talk up the deal, he told NBC that U.S. and UN nuclear inspectors will be allowed to enter Iran.

“In fact, one of the core parts of the agreement is that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the United States are going to help Iran destroy the highly enriched stockpile, and that’s something that’s spelled out very clearly” in the MoU, Mr. Vance said.

Published – June 16, 2026 09:34 am IST

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman. File
| Photo Credit: Reuter

FILE PHOTO: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters