Published: 12:10 AM, 09 May 2026
US-Iran ceasefire under threat
A woman crosses a street in Tehran near a government billboard depicting the Strait of Hormuz with a caption reading: 'Forever in Iran's Hand'. -AFP
The US and Iran exchanged fire late on Thursday in the most serious test yet of their month-long ceasefire.
Iran accused the US of violating the ceasefire by targeting two ships at the Strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas, as the US insisted it struck in retaliation.
The US military said it targeted sites responsible for attacking three US destroyers transiting the strait, in what it called "unprovoked" hostilities by Tehran. Iran's Press TV reported that after several hours of fire "the situation on Iranian islands and coastal cities by the strait of Hormuz is back to normal now".
The United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted Iranian missile and drone attacks hours after the US said it thwarted attacks on the USS Truxtun, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason, the Guardian reports.
The fresh skirmishes threw into question the viability of a shaky ceasefire that had largely held for the previous month. But Donald Trump, the US president, insisted it remained intact despite the strikes, which he described in an interview with ABC News as a "love tap".
"They trifled with us today," Trump told reporters, during an evening visit to the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC. "We blew them away. They trifled. I call that a trifle." Asked where this left hopes of a negotiated end to the conflict, Trump said a deal "might not happen, but it could happen any day".
"I believe they want the deal more than I do," Trump claimed. Brent crude oil rose to trade about $101 a barrel on news of the attacks.
Before the strikes, there were reports the US and Iran may be close to a temporary agreement to halt the war, with a one-page memorandum being shared between Washington and Tehran, through Pakistan.
Senior Iranian officials have rejected concessions in recent days. Some favour dragging out the negotiations to closer to the November midterm elections in the US, when the Trump administration will be under intense pressure to settle the war and Iran may get a better deal.
However, regional diplomats believe Iran could overplay its hand, with the current moment offering an opportunity to finish the war and claim a victory - something that could be harder if all-out fighting resumes. If there were no agreement, Washington could also unilaterally end the war and walk away, leaving Iran under suffocating economic sanctions, they said.
In a statement on Thursday evening, US Central Command (Centcom) said Iranian forces had "launched multiple missiles, drones and small boats" at the three destroyers, but that "no US assets were struck".
Centcom said its forces eliminated "inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities" responsible for attacking US forces, including missile and drone launch sites, command and control locations, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes.
"Centcom does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces," it added.
Iran's military accused the US of breaking the ceasefire agreement by targeting an Iranian oil tanker and another ship entering the strait of Hormuz.
"The aggressive, terrorist, and pirate US military has violated the ceasefire," a military spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added the US carried out airstrikes on "civilian areas" along the coasts of Bandar Khamir, Sirik and the island of Qeshm - home to about 150,000 people and a water desalination plant - and that the strikes were launched "with the cooperation of some regional countries".
They said Iran's armed forces responded by attacking US military vessels, "reportedly inflicting significant damage on them".
The US been pressuring Iran to reopen the strait, enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports. On Monday, the US military said it had destroyed six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones, after Trump sent warships to "guide" stranded tankers through the strait in a campaign he called "Project Freedom".
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump praised the crews of the destroyers for transiting out of the waterway while under fire. The US vessels sustained "no damage", he said, while describing the "Iranian attackers" as having been "completely destroyed along with numerous small boats" as well as missiles and drones.
Trump railed that the attack showed Iran was "not a normal country" and its "lunatic" leaders would not hesitate to use a nuclear weapon if they had one. Without swift diplomatic action, the US could respond "a lot more violently" in the future.
The Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, had struck an optimistic tone prior to the exchanges of fire, saying in televised remarks: "I firmly believe that this ceasefire will turn into a long-term ceasefire."
Any agreement between the US and Iran could also help lower tensions in Lebanon, where a separate truce was under renewed strain after an Israeli strike on southern Beirut killed a commander from militant group Hezbollah on Wednesday.
A US state department official confirmed on Thursday that the new Israel-Lebanon talks would take place on 14 and 15 May. It will be the third meeting in recent months between the two countries, which have technically been at war for decades and have no diplomatic relations.
