The United States and Iran have exchanged a major new round of attacks, bringing the six-month-old war back into direct military confrontation after weeks in which the conflict had largely shifted toward an economic and maritime standoff.
The latest escalation began with a fresh wave of US strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday night, followed by Iranian missile and drone attacks against US military positions in several countries across the region.
The renewed fighting has once again placed the strategically important Strait of Hormuz at the centre of the conflict.
The United States launched its latest attacks on Tuesday, September 1, with explosions reported across several areas of southern Iran.
US Central Command said the strikes targeted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and were carried out following what Washington described as recent Iranian attempts to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and American service members deployed to the region.
Explosions were reported in and around Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Qeshm Island and Jask, as well as other areas along Iran’s southern coast.
Donald Trump said the strikes were specifically in retaliation for an Iranian attempt to place sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz and for the launch of eight missiles toward a US military base in Jordan.
Trump said the missiles fired toward the Jordanian base had all been intercepted.
The US military said its attacks included Iranian military infrastructure, including air-defence systems and drone-related facilities.
Civilian casualties reported
The attacks also reportedly caused civilian casualties.
Iranian officials said an American strike hit a location in Sirik County in Hormozgan province, where a wedding ceremony was taking place.
Iranian authorities reported that at least five people were killed and more than 50 wounded, including a child. Iranian sources described the incident as a strike on a civilian gathering, while the United States has maintained that its campaign was directed at military targets.
The full circumstances surrounding the strike remain unclear.
Iran retaliates
Iran responded during the night with missile and drone attacks against US military positions in the region.
The IRGC said it had begun what it described as a retaliatory operation against American forces.
Iran reported launching ballistic missiles and drones toward Camp Titin in Jordan and Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.
Iranian forces also threatened American interests elsewhere in the Gulf.
Jordan said its air-defence forces intercepted 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered its airspace during the attacks, with the remaining missiles falling in remote areas. Jordan reported no deaths from those attacks.
Other reports indicated Iranian attacks or attempted attacks involving Kuwait and Iraq, adding to the growing number of countries being drawn into the confrontation.
Iran claimed that its attacks caused significant damage and American casualties, but those claims have not been independently confirmed. Initial American assessments reported no US casualties from the Iranian retaliation.
The IRGC also claimed that Iranian air defences had shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
Trump warns Iran of a larger attack
Following the Iranian retaliation, Trump warned Tehran against launching further attacks.
He said that if Iran retaliated again, the United States would respond at an even higher level.
The exchange has therefore created the possibility of another cycle of attacks, with Iran threatening continued resistance and Washington warning of further strikes.
Why did the US-Iran fighting restart?
Although the latest attacks happened suddenly, the conflict did not actually come out of nowhere.
The US and Iran had been operating under a fragile June Memorandum of Understanding, which halted major fighting and created a period for negotiations.
The agreement was intended to stop the war while the two sides negotiated over Iran’s nuclear programme and other issues.
It also involved the Strait of Hormuz.
Under the arrangement, Iran was expected to restore commercial shipping through the strait toward pre-war levels, while the United States provided concessions including a waiver relating to sanctioned Iranian oil exports and the unfreezing of Iranian assets.
But the agreement did not resolve the fundamental disagreements between Washington and Tehran.
The negotiation period eventually passed without a comprehensive settlement.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that Tehran was still prepared to immediately reciprocate the June agreement if Washington honoured its commitments.
Washington, however, argued that Iran had failed to meet its obligations, particularly regarding the security and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Hormuz became the main battlefield
As diplomacy stalled, the conflict increasingly shifted from conventional attacks to an economic and maritime confrontation.
The United States imposed a naval blockade that has severely restricted Iranian oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz.
Reuters reported that Iranian crude exports had fallen dramatically, from around 2 million barrels per day in March to roughly 220,000–255,000 barrels per day in August.
Iran, meanwhile, continued to threaten the movement of shipping through the strait.
Tehran has argued that if Iran is prevented from exporting its own oil, other countries should not expect to freely export oil through the same waterway.
This has turned the strait into the central point of leverage between the two sides.
Tankers were attacked
The situation became even more dangerous at the end of August.
On Monday, two large oil tankers carrying Saudi crude were attacked while passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The vessels were the Saudi-flagged Sidr and the Liberian-flagged Senegal Prosperity.
Both had loaded around two million barrels of Saudi crude and were attacked near Khasab, Oman.
No casualties were reported, but the incidents represented a major escalation because they occurred while commercial shipping was already facing severe restrictions in the waterway.
The attacks increased pressure on Washington to respond.
The first direct attacks after the lull
The situation finally erupted into direct US-Iranian attacks again on August 30.
The United States struck Larak Island, near the Strait of Hormuz, targeting Iranian rocket launchers.
Washington said the launchers were connected to Iranian preparations to lay mines in the strait.
Iran responded by firing missiles at US military bases in Jordan, marking the first direct exchange between the two countries in several weeks.
At the time, both sides appeared to treat the exchange as limited.
But the situation deteriorated rapidly.
From a limited exchange to a new escalation
The United States subsequently accused Iran of continuing to threaten commercial shipping and American forces.
On September 1, Washington launched its newest and larger wave of attacks.
Iran then retaliated across the region.
What had initially been a limited confrontation around Hormuz has therefore once again become a wider military confrontation involving American forces and bases across the Middle East.
The underlying dispute, however, remains the same: Iran wants relief from the American blockade and sanctions and control over its ability to use the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States wants the waterway reopened and Iranian military capabilities threatening shipping and American forces destroyed.
What happens next?
The immediate danger is that another Iranian attack could trigger an even larger American response.
Iran has made clear that it will continue retaliating against American forces if its territory is attacked, while Trump has warned that further Iranian attacks will bring stronger US strikes.
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively at the heart of the confrontation.
The waterway carries roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies, meaning that continued fighting could affect not only the United States and Iran, but also energy prices and economies around the world.
For now, the June agreement that temporarily stopped the fighting remains unresolved, diplomacy has failed to produce a lasting settlement, and the two sides are once again exchanging missiles and airstrikes.
What began as a war over Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities has increasingly become a struggle over oil, sanctions and control of the Strait of Hormuz.
