Iran
US Strikes Near Bushehr as Truce Fractures
The collapse of the Islamabad Memorandum's fragile truce is not an accidental drift. It reflects a calculated Iranian strategy to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has pushed commercial vessels toward routes and protocols set by the regime itself, a bid for what Britannica describes as hegemonic control over one of the world's most volatile oil chokepoints. Iran's attacks on three tankers on July 6 and 7 forced the issue, and Washington answered not with a proportional response but with a deliberate expansion of the target set. On July 9, US Central Command struck approximately 90 sites, and Iranian officials say the wave reached beyond conventional military infrastructure into the country's most sensitive domestic red lines. A Bushehr provincial official told Turkiye Today that projectiles struck the perimeter of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran's only operating civilian reactor, as well as piers at Asaluyeh, near the…
US Strikes Reach Bushehr as Iran Ceasefire Collapses
U.S. strikes hit near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant on Thursday as a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between Washington and Tehran unraveled, marking the fourth confirmed incident since February affecting the facility’s perimeter.U.S. Central Command said it struck about 90 targets across southern Iran to degrade Tehran’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Bushehr provincial official Ehsan Jahanian told Iran’s ISNA news agency that strikes hit the nuclear plant’s perimeter, a military base in nearby Choghadak and a fishing pier elsewhere in the province. Reuters said it could not independently verify the reported damage.The renewed fighting followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration at the NATO summit in Ankara that the ceasefire was "over," effectively ending the truce brokered by Pakistan in April.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has previously recorded three security incidents affecting Bushehr’s perimeter – on 17 March, 24 March and 4 April. The April incident killed…
Nearly 6,000 Seafarers Remain Stranded in Persian Gulf
The head of the International Maritime Organization condemned fresh attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz on July 8, saying roughly 6,000 seafarers aboard hundreds of ships remain trapped in the Persian Gulf as the US-Iran conflict reignites. IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said the attacks over the past two days had "again placed innocent seafarers in grave danger," adding that "no seafarer should have to risk their life simply for doing their job," according to an IMO statement.Even ships willing to risk the transit are running into a second, commercial obstacle. Dominguez said this week that insurers keeping war-risk premiums near crisis-peak levels was itself now "compounding the strain" on shipowners, and urged governments with influence over insurance markets to press insurers to reprice risk to match current conditions "rather than continuing to reflect the peak of the crisis," according to Insurance Journal. Iran, meanwhile, has signaled it intends…
Trump Declares Ceasefire Over as US, Iran Trade Strikes
The United States and Iran exchanged fresh military strikes this week after President Donald Trump declared the three-week-old ceasefire between the two countries over, speaking from the NATO summit in Ankara and describing Iranian leaders as "sick people," according to Al Jazeera. The reversal unwinds the most serious de-escalation effort since the war began in February.The United States launched a new round of strikes against Iran, hitting more than 80 targets according to Central Command, per CNN, and revoked a sanctions waiver covering Iranian oil sales after accusing Tehran of attacking commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, according to RFE/RL. The two moves landed the same day, pairing kinetic action with an economic lever targeting Iran’s oil revenue.Iran responded within hours. The IRGC said it launched a joint drone and missile attack on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, including Camp Arifjan and the Juffair facility, home to the…
Strait of Hormuz Reopens as U.S.–Iran Diplomacy in Qatar Remains Uncertain
U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in #Doha on 30 June to meet Qatari mediators on U.S.–Iran negotiations,…
U.S.-Iran Truce Breaks for Two Days, Then Holds
June 29, 2026. A fragile U.S.-Iran truce over the Strait of #Hormuz broke for two days, then held, after a…
