Updated June 27, 2026 at 10:00 AM CDT
Bahrain has accused Iran of targeting it with drones, the latest challenge to a fragile interim agreement Tehran and Washington reached earlier this month. The accusation came amid a broader day of strikes and increasing tension across the region.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre, a British maritime security agency, also reported an attack on a commercial vessel Saturday, close to the coast of Oman.
There were no immediate reports of damage from the strikes. But Bahrain state media accused Iran of "exporting chaos and undermining regional stability." Egypt and Kuwait also swiftly condemned the attack.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard issued a statement Saturday carried by the state-run IRNA news agency saying simply it had targeted several locations "of the U.S. terrorist army in the region."
The strikes came hours after American military forces targeted several Iranian military sites late Friday in response to an Iranian drone attack the previous day on a cargo ship navigating the Strait of Hormuz.
The Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship, had been exiting the Strait close to the Omani coast, after U.S. forces had established and cleared Iranian mines from that particular route. Iran has insisted vessels should only use routes it has designated closer to its own coastline, and has repeatedly warned vessels against transiting that U.S.-supported corridor near Oman.
U.S. Central Command said Friday its warplanes hit missile and drone storage locations along Iran's coast, as well as coastal radar installations. It was the second time in three weeks American warplanes had struck similar targets after Iranian drone attacks in the strait.
Potential for military actions to spiral
The strikes place the ceasefire under immediate strain. President Trump, speaking at the White House before the military action, said the drone attack on the Ever Lovely had violated the ceasefire. "I don't like the fact that they took a shot yesterday, actually four of them," he said from the Oval Office. Asked why the U.S. would strike back while insisting that talks with Tehran were progressing, Trump said of Iran: "They're a little bit different," before cutting off questions and having reporters removed from the room.
Vice President JD Vance, writing on social media Friday evening, said Iran should "pick up the phone" if it had objections to the terms of the ceasefire agreement, adding that "violence will be met with violence."
Iranian officials pushed back on the characterisation that their actions constituted a ceasefire violation.
Ebrahim Azizi, who chairs Iran's parliamentary national security commission, wrote on social media: "the Strait of Hormuz is governed by Iran," and warned the Trump administration that it should "not mistake control for escalation." He said Thursday's attack amounted to "ceasefire management" rather than a breach.
The incidents threatened to slow what had been a cautious reopening of the waterway to commercial shipping.
A United Nations maritime agency had begun moving stranded vessels out of the Strait via the alternative Omani coastal route earlier this week, but halted those operations after Thursday's attack and said they would not resume without guarantees of safe passage.
The marine data firm Windward noted on social media that while the Strait remained operationally open, with dozens of vessels transiting after the incident, "the pace of normalization has slowed."
The U.S. and Iran are still working through the terms of a broader settlement under the 60-day window set by last week's memorandum of understanding, including the future of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
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