U.S. strikes Iran for first time in weeks as six-month war reignites over Strait of Hormuz

Iranian authorities have seized a bulk carrier they accuse of dumping oil and sludge into the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported Monday.

“Following the publication of images of the discharge of oil into the sea … expert and clean-up teams were dispatched to the site and seized the ship causing the pollution,” the deputy head of the Ports and Maritime Department of the southern Hormozgan province, Esmaeil Makizadeh, told Iran’s official IRNA news agency.

“The seized ship was a bulk carrier carrying sugar and had dumped a mixture of burnt oil, bilge water and industrial sludge directly into the sea,” he said, without specifying the vessel’s flag or the nationalities of its crew.

He said the waste had since been cleaned from the water and the seized ship referred to Iran’s judiciary.

CBS/AFP

The European Union said Monday it would continue to maintain pressure on Iran by working with the United States and other G7 partners.

In a statement issued by the European Commission, the EU said it believed diplomatic efforts were needed to end the war and reopen the Start of Hormuz, but that it remained ready to expand sanctions and other measures to heap economic pressure on Iran.

“The EU welcomes efforts at ensuring that Iran ceases its destabilizing activities and engages in peace negotiations with good faith, also through additional economic pressure, including through the U.S.-led Operation Economic Outcast,” the statement said.

On August 19, the Financial Times newspaper reported that Iranian forces had assessed striking U.S. assets in Europe if President Trump escalated the war. If they do, the hypothetical attack would be a major expansion of the conflict into NATO territory.

Iran’s foreign minister on Monday claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tricked the U.S. into jointly launching the war with Iran.

“In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the U.S. administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed in a social media post. 

“Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he ‘influenced’ America through 1,000 hours of airtime on U.S. networks,” he said.

The Trump administration has pushed back for months against the narrative that Israel led the U.S. into the war, while offering varying reasons for launching the attacks since the conflict began.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said just a few days into the war that the Trump administration had decided to join in the attack because Israel was planning to strike Iran, and “we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.” For that reason, Rubio said, the U.S. chose to strike Iran “preemptively” to take out many of its missiles. 

CBS/AFP

The United Arab Emirates condemned Iran on Monday for launching an attack on the country, which Iran’s military called retaliation for U.S. strikes on an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz

The “aggressive attacks” by Iran represent “a dangerous escalation, an unacceptable assault, and direct threat to the country’s security, stability, and territorial integrity,” the UAE foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the UAE’s military had intercepted a drone launched by Iran over territorial waters.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to “respond decisively” to attacks, after the U.S. said it had carried out strikes on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will have no hesitation in exercising their inherent right to self-defense and will respond decisively, as appropriate, to any military aggression by the enemy,” the ministry said in a statement.

It also warned that other countries that assist the U.S. military in its attacks bear “responsibility for the consequences.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have targeted U.S. forces in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in retaliation for the American strikes on Larak Island.

President Trump shared an AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform late Sunday depicting what he said was Iran’s strategic oil hub of Kharg Island under attack.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!” Mr. Trump wrote in his post accompanying the video.

It appeared to be a threat to the Iranian island, as there has been no evidence of any recent attack on the territory in the far northern Persian Gulf, which has long been Iran’s primary oil export terminal.

Earlier, the U.S. military struck Iran’s Larak Island, which sits very close to Iran’s coastline in the Strait of Hormuz.

The CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company said Monday that operations on Kharg Island had not stopped, according to Iran’s government-affiliated Nour News agency, which was cited by Reuters.

A supertanker was struck by two naval mines while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, sparking a fire and forcing it to stop, according to a statement by the Iranian military quoted by the Reuters news agency.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said the tanker had attempted to pass through the strategic waterway illegally, but it did not identify the ship or provide information about its location or crew.

The most recent incident involving a commercial ship in the region reported by the U.K. Navy’s Maritime Operations center, which monitors such attacks, was a tanker “struck by an unknown projectile whilst transiting inbound in the Strait of Hormuz” on Saturday. 

UKMTO said there were no casualties and no environmental impact reported.

The Jordanian Armed Forces said Sunday it intercepted eight missiles that had entered the country’s airspace, according to Jordan’s Al-Mamlaka TV broadcaster.  

A spokesperson for the military said all eight missiles were destroyed before they could do any damage, according to the broadcaster.

A person familiar with the attack also confirmed to CBS News the missiles were intercepted, although they did not specify how many.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Sunday it launched attacks on American military bases in Jordan in response to the U.S.’s earlier attack on Larak Island.

The IRGC said it launched ballistic missiles at King Hussein and Al-Azraq air bases and claimed it destroyed “technical and maintenance infrastructure and the enemy’s fighter jets’ deployment sites.” 

Separately, the IRGC said it targeted U.S. military personnel on an air base in the United Arab Emirates, and that it shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. forces on Sunday struck two rocket launchers on Iran’s Larak Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins. 

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets and deploy sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz, Hawkins said. CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said Friday that U.S. forces had cleared all sea mines from the shipping lanes of the strait.

Larak Island sits in the Strait of Hormuz, just a few miles off Iran’s coast, and Tehran is believed to have used the island as a de facto toll booth as it demands ships pay fees to transit the strategic waterway safely.

The IRGC, in a statement conveyed by Iran’s state broadcaster, said “several of our fighters and compatriots” were killed and wounded in the U.S. strike, according to The Associated Press.

The statement said the attack would “result in punishment of the aggressor.”