US hits Iran, Iran retaliates on Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan
The United States launched several waves of strikes on Iran into Monday morning over an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left a crew member missing over the weekend. Iran retaliated by targeting countries across the Middle East.
Missile alert sirens sounded at dawn Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed strikes against Bahrain and Oman, saying they destroyed radar systems in Oman and targeted U.S. military facilities on the southern edge of Manama.
"In addition to targeting U.S. military facilities and infrastructure in Juffair, Bahrain, where fires are raging, the navy of the Revolutionary Guards has... targeted and destroyed the long-range airborne FPS radar and the ship-detection radar in the Sultanate of Oman," said a statement from the Guards carried by their Sepah news outlet.
The Jordanian military said it had shot down four Iranian missiles over the country.
"At dawn today, air defense systems intercepted and shot down four missiles that had entered Jordanian airspace from Iranian territory," an official source from the Jordanian General Staff said, adding that there were no reports of injuries or damage to property.
Kuwait's armed forces also said they were responding to "hostile aerial targets" on Monday.
"The Armed Forces are currently intercepting hostile aerial targets within Kuwaiti airspace," the head of Kuwait's army said in a statement published by the state-run news agency KUNA.
Iranian state media acknowledged the latest attacks on its soil early Monday, describing explosions in several locations with at least one person being killed.
Iranian attacks on Sunday stretched Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman — whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. The narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, which once saw a fifth of all oil and natural gas pass through it, has become the key issue challenging an interim deal between the U.S. and Iran.
Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of that deal, which was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war could resume.
“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
Source: Agence France Presse, Associated Press
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/321215 |