THE United States launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, and Tehran responded by targeting US-allied Mideast countries in an exchange of fire that threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the Middle East. Back-and-forth attacks, including a day earlier, have repeatedly threatened the ceasefire, but Thursday’s appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least three times in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters, and missiles targeting Kuwait and Qatar. Sirens sounded Thursday afternoon in Jordan as well, where the US has stationed troops and aircraft. An Iranian official accused the US of launching an airstrike later Thursday targeting the area around Iran’s sole nuclear power plant, and other explosions were reported elsewhere in the country during the afternoon. The strikes came hours after US President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signalled the end of a fragile ceasefire and threatened to escalate the conflict if they didn’t stop. That raised concerns that the region could tip back into a war that would engulf several countries and could halt energy shipments through the strait that are crucial for the global economy. In Iran, the two days of American airstrikes have killed at least 14 people and wounded another 78, Iran’s Health Ministry said Thursday - most of those reportedly members of the armed forces. In Kuwait, the military said falling debris wounded one person as it shot down three ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 10 drones. Bahrain said it shot down incoming fire, without elaborating. There was no immediate word of damage in Qatar. The US military’s Central Command said it hit some 90 targets across Iran, releasing black-and-white footage of what appeared to be strikes on an airport runway and missile launchers.

 

The US said the strikes were intended to “further degrade” Iran’s ability “to threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed before the war began with US and Israeli attacks on February 28. Attacks on ships - and the threat of them - virtually halted traffic in the waterway during the conflict, causing the price of oil to skyrocket and raising prices on many basic goods, including food, far beyond the region. Iranian state media reported explosions in several locations, including Bushehr, home to Iran’s nuclear power plant complex, and southern port cities. In Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province, at least three people were killed Thursday, state media reported. In Iranshahr, authorities said a strike killed a firefighter at an airport. Those fatalities followed the deaths of at least nine members of Iran’s armed forces in Wednesday’s strikes, according to state media. It wasn’t clear when the other death happened and who was killed. For the first time since April, US strikes also appeared to target Iranian bridges. State media reported a strike on a railway bridge in Iran’s northeastern Golestan province, and the Revolutionary Guard said two bridges were attacked on the route to Mashhad, where officials plan to bury the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday. The State-run IRNA news agency quoted Ehsan Jahanian, a local official in Bushehr, as accusing the US of striking near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.

 

He said the strike came around noon, hours after the US military’s Central Command said it had ended its strikes on Iran. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During the Iran war, several strikes hit in the area around the plant, which is managed by Russian technicians, but caused no damage to the plant itself. Trump warns that it will get ‘much worse’ if attacks on shipping happen again After leaving a NATO summit in Turkiye, Trump posted several videos on his social media site of what he said were explosions in Iran and issued another warning to the Islamic Republic. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote. Trump said earlier in the day that the latest back-and-forth fighting would not result in “long-term” military action. “Anything that happens is going to happen very fast,” Trump said.