U.S. military launches new strikes in Iran – NBC News

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Iran accused the United States on Tuesday of “a clear violation of the ceasefire” between the two countries after the U.S. launched what it called defensive strikes that threatened to disrupt intensifying talks to end the war.
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Two U.S. officials said the U.S. military strikes were in direct response to what they described Tuesday as 24 hours of missile, drone and small boat launches carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near the Strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC launched multiple surface-to-air missiles while the U.S. had aircraft flying in the area, the officials said. They said no U.S. aircraft were hit. The drones and small boats were capable of laying mines that could threaten U.S. ships and aircraft, the officials said.
The U.S. strikes were “very limited” and “very precise,” one of the officials said.
The attacks came even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in India that a deal could be finalized in “a couple of days,” and that the negotiators were down to “disagreements over a word, a sentence.”
But Iran, which has been more guarded on the progress in the talks, issued a strongly worded statement Tuesday denouncing the U.S. strikes that it said contravened the seven-week pause in fighting.
American forces have “committed a violation of the ceasefire in the Hormuz region over the past 48 hours,” Tehran’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
Iran “holds the American regime responsible for all consequences arising from these hostile acts,” it said, warning that “without any doubt,” it would “leave no act of aggression unanswered and will not hesitate in defending the dignity of Iran and its people.”
By carrying out these “aggressive actions” while negotiations were ongoing, the U.S. had “once again demonstrated the bad faith and unreliability” of its administration, both toward Iran and the international community, it said.
There was no announcement of any change in the temporary ceasefire, which went into effect April 8. “U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” CENTCOM spokesperson Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said late Monday, announcing the strikes.
Tehran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard vowed to “respond decisively to any violation of the ceasefire.” It claimed to have shot down an American MQ-9 drone and fired at another U.S. drone and F-35 fighter jet, forcing them to turn around, according to a statement carried by the semiofficial news agency Fars.
The strikes are not the first to be carried out by the U.S. amid the ongoing ceasefire. But this new round of attacks was launched as the two sides ramped up talks about ending the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
Iran said earlier Monday that an agreement was not imminent after Trump raised and then lowered expectations that a deal may be close.
The presence of Tehran’s top negotiators in Qatar offered another clue that there may be progress toward a deal to end the three-month war.
The unfreezing of billions of dollars of Iranian assets held by the Gulf emirate was a central demand of the team, Iranian news agencies said.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf left Qatar on Tuesday after staying overnight for continuing talks, a diplomat with knowledge of the visit told NBC News. He had arrived Monday along with other Iranian officials as Qatar stepped up its mediation role in an effort to get a deal over the line.
An agreement on an initial “memorandum of understanding” could see the end of the war and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The framework being discussed would then give the two sides 60 days to reach a full peace deal, according to a senior Trump administration official.
Iran effectively closed the crucial trade route and the U.S. military has blockaded Iranian ports, throttling maritime traffic and disrupting global supplies of energy and food.
Trump, however, inserted a new wrinkle into the talks Monday, explicitly linking an Iran deal with the Abraham Accords between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. He called on a number of nations in the region, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others, to join the breakthrough agreement.
A senior Arab official from a country Trump mentioned rejected the idea of a package deal, telling NBC News that the first priority should be stopping the war with Iran and reopening Hormuz, and then discussing a peace deal with Israel.
“We need to get this done, then we start looking at resolving other issues,” said the official, who didn’t want to be named.
Also Monday, Trump demanded a resolution to the issue of enriched uranium inside Iran, a key sticking point in the ongoing negotiations. The president has repeatedly called for Iran’s current stockpile to be removed from the country and sent to either the U.S. or another location.
Trump said on social media that the material “will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.”
A senior White House official told NBC News this is not a new position for the president and does not reflect any demand that hasn’t already been communicated to the Iranians.
Tehran has insisted it has no plans to build a nuclear weapon and has maintained its right to a nuclear program.
Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since succeeding his slain father, vowed Tuesday that the U.S. would no longer have any haven in the Middle East.
“The ticker of time will not go back and nations and countries of the region will no longer be shields of American bases,” Khamenei, who is believed to have suffered injuries in U.S.-Israeli strikes, said on social media.
Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
Raf Sanchez is a foreign correspondent for NBC News.
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
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