The US said it struck Iranian military sites at the weekend and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday it had targeted a US base in response, the latest in a series of exchanges amid negotiations to end the three-month-old war.
The strikes on Iran’s Gulf coast were in response to “aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” the US Central Command said in a post on X.
“US fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defences, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters,” Centcom said, adding it will continue to protect US assets and interests during the ongoing ceasefire.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Monday it had targeted an air base used by the US for an attack on southern Iran, without identifying which base.
Air defences in Kuwait, where a major US base is located, were intercepting missile and drone attacks on Monday as sirens sounded across the country, the state news agency KUNA reported, without providing further details.
Shortly after the US military issued the statement, US President Donald Trump said that Iran really wanted to make a deal with the US and that it would be a good one for Washington and its allies.
“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us,” Trump posted on Truth Social. However, Trump also said it was tougher for him to negotiate with Iran with all the political commentary surrounding the conflict.
”… it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever,” the president said.
“Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — It always does!”
The US and Iran have sporadically exchanged strikes since their ceasefire took effect in early April as negotiations aimed at a more durable agreement drag on. A similar exchange occurred last Thursday and was described in similar terms by both sides.
The war launched by the US and Israel on February 28 has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and caused global economic pain by pushing up energy prices due to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has said his key aim in the war is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon with its highly enriched uranium. Tehran has consistently denied it has plans to do that.
Trump is under pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get US gasoline prices down ahead of the November congressional elections, as voters show increasing frustration over rising prices. At the same time, he faces a potential backlash from Iran hawks in his own party over any concessions to Tehran.
The two sides remain at odds on several other issues, such as Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.
Israel’s war in Lebanon with Hezbollah is another major impediment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had ordered troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle against Hezbollah.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with both Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Netanyahu on the diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and has proposed a plan to allow for “gradual de-escalation,” a US official said.
