AS IT HAPPENED: US launches fresh strikes on Iran after ‘clear threats’

After bombing Iran over the weekend and Tehran launching retaliatory attacks on US sites, Donald Trump has responded with a simple message.

“Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end - It always does!” the US president wrote on Truth Social.

Officials from both nations are still trying to settle a deal, with the ceasefire appearing ever more fragile.

Trump also dubbed his rival party the ‘Dumocrats’ and called some members of his own Republican Party ‘unpatriotic.’

“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us,” Trump said.

“But don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping’, at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever.”

More on those reports of fresh bombings between the US and Iran.

The US bombed Iranian radar and drone control sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American MQ-1 Predator drone this weekend, the US military has said.Iran acknowledged launching a retaliatory strike.

Kuwait has also said it was intercepting incoming drone and missile fire, AP reports.

The duelling attacks reflect the fragility of a weekslong ceasefire in the Iran war, which has seen repeated attacks even as US and Iranian officials try to negotiate a deal to extend it.

Iran has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz in the meantime, disrupting global energy supplies as a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed through.

“The measured and deliberate strikes occurred... in response to aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” Central Command said.

“US fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defences, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters.“Kuwait, meanwhile, said its air defences had opened fire early this morning (local time) to intercept incoming drone and missile fire.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said in a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency that US forces had targeted a telecommunications tower on an island. The Guard said it responded with an attack.

Iran has hit US military targets after a fresh wave of strikes on the country, reports say.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it targeted an air base which was used for an attack on a telecoms tower on Sirik Island in the southern Hormozgan province, Al Jazeera reports.

It happened about an hour ago, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.

“Following the aggression of the US army on a communication tower on Sirik Island in Hormozgan Province an hour ago, the IRGC Aerospace Force fighters targeted the air base where the aggression originated and the predicted targets were destroyed,” the agency reports.

Kuwait says its air defences are intercepting “hostile missile and drone attacks”, according to Al Jazeera.

The news outlet reports that the General Staff of the Kuwaiti Army says air defences are “currently confronting hostile missile and drone attacks”.

It says sounds of explosions may be air defences intercepting the projectiles, the army added.

America has confirmed it attacked Iran over the weekend - despite a ceasefire still being in place.

US Central Command called the bombings “self-defence strikes” on Iranian radar and command and control sites for drones.

It said it hit the city of Goruk and Qeshm Island, which is off the coast in the Strait of Hormuz, on Saturday and Sunday.

“The measured and deliberate strikes occurred on Saturday and Sunday in response to aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” a post on X said.

“US fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defences, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters.”

The post said it will “continue to protect US assets and interests in response to unwarranted Iranian aggression during the ongoing ceasefire”.

A 26-year-old Palestinian man was fatally shot by Israeli forces on Sunday local time, the Palestinian Health Ministry claimed.

Imad Haroun Ishtayeh was supposedly shot in the leg at a concrete barrier separating the occupied West Bank from Jerusalem.

He died in hospital.

Israeli authorities say the man had unlawfully tried the country.

A relative told Associated Press Ishtayeh had been seeking new employment in Israel after his poultry slaughterhouse failed.

Photos showed a large crowd of mourners farewelling Ishtayeh, whose body was wrapped in a Palestine flag.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stoked a new controversy after following through on his promise to become the first mayor in decades to not attend the city’s Israel Day parade this weekend.

Mamdani had pledged to avoid the parade while campaigning for office, citing his stance on the Israeli government policies.

“I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending the parade, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear,” Mamdani told reporters.

He promised there would be a large police presence to guarantee the safety of parade-goers, while Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a Jewish woman, did attend the march.

The Netanyahu government’s ongoing military action in Gaza and the Middle East following the October 7 Hamas attacks has had a heavy impact on US politics, with support for Israel declining on both the left and right.

The Iranian government has quashed rumours that President Masoud Pezeshkian has resigned his post.

The Institute for the Study of War claimed that “anti-regime media”, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter, that Pezeshkian had submitted a resignation letter to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

A government spokesperson responded through state media, refuting the claims but offering no more detail.

There has been speculation of rifts between the highest levels of the Iranian government, and with the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard, which has hampered Iran in negotiations.

The most recent post on Pezeshkian’s English-language X account is from overnight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has offered to help the US manufacture more ballistic missiles to make up for the shortfall left by the Iran war.

“There is not enough anti-ballistic missile production in the United States and this could lead to a crisis in different parts of the world,” he said in a post on X.

“Russia is ramping up its internal production of ballistic missiles. I sent a letter to the White House and to the US Congress.”

Zelenskyy said he had asked the Biden administration, and as well as now the Trump administration, for licences to produce Patriot missiles.

“We can increase the production of Patriot missiles. This will help us,” he said.

“This will help the Middle East and any other country that the United States decides to help. Until we produce a European anti-ballistic system, we will need support from the United States.”