The US has launched new strikes on southern Iran targeting Iran’s missile sites and boats trying to plant mines.
The US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement that the strikes were in self-defense and designed to protect troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.
It, however, stressed that the strikes did not indicate the ceasefire with Tehran was over. The strikes, the second major attacks to take place during the seven-week ceasefire, came as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, led a delegation of negotiators to Qatar.
“US forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran yesterday to protect troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” Centcom spokesperson, Capt Tim Hawkins, said in a statement.
“US Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.”
Capt Hawkins added the US strikes targeted an area near Bandar Abbas, a southern port city and home of an Iranian naval base that sits on the Strait of Hormuz, according to the New York Times.
Iranian state media had earlier reported that local officials in Bandar Abbas were investigating after explosions were heard.
Meanwhile, a statement posted to Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei’s official X account and read out on Iranian state television yesterday said that the Middle East countries “will no longer serve as shields for American bases” as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
“The hand of time does not turn back,” the statement attributed to Khamenei said. “America will no longer have a safe haven for mischief and the establishment of military bases in the region.”
Khamenei has not been seen in public since being elected as the successor to his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Feb. 28 by airstrikes targeting his office in Tehran in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
