US, Iran Trade Attacks as Mediators Urge Adherence to MoU
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- US Central Command struck approximately 90 military targets in Iran, including missile and drone storage sites and logistics facilities along Iran's coastline, in what it called an effort to degrade Iran's "ability to threaten the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz".
- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliated by attacking US-linked infrastructure at Arifjan and Ali Al Salem bases in Kuwait and Juffair and Sheikh Isa bases in Bahrain, with the Iranian army later adding a Patriot missile system in Kuwait, a satellite antenna in Qatar, and US fuel depots in Bahrain to its target list.
- President Trump posted on Truth Social that the US attacks were "retribution for yesterday's bombing of ships by Iran" and warned "If it happens again, it will get much worse," while separately telling reporters aboard Air Force One that Iran had "called a little while ago" wanting "to make a deal so badly."
- Iran's Health Ministry reported at least 14 people killed and 78 others injured over the past two days, with IRNA reporting a railway bridge strike disrupting the Tehran-Mashhad line and attacks on a military base in Bushehr, home to Iran's only civilian nuclear power plant.
- Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a phone call that both sides should implement the MoU to end the war, joining UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Pakistan in calls for maximum restraint.
- The mid-June MoU, brokered by Pakistan and Qatar, was designed to extend an April ceasefire, lift the US naval blockade of Iran, and gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but Al Jazeera's Resul Serdar Atas reported from Tehran that the two sides are now "stuck in an equation — almost a deadlock" over who controls the waterway.
Why it matters: The Strait of Hormuz standoff is the core structural conflict, and Iran views control of the waterway as the "ultimate deterrent" that underpins its negotiating position with Washington. With roughly 90 US targets struck in one day and Iran retaliating across three Gulf states, a ceasefire Trump publicly declared "over" is being tested in real time even as he signals Iran is still calling to negotiate — meaning the next 48 hours likely determine whether the June MoU framework survives at all.
