President Donald Trump increasingly appears to be boxed in. U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement a week ago to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump, however, has called for unspecified changes, and Iranian officials have shown no public sign of agreeing to the deal.
The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south while saying it targets the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, also challenges efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extends to Lebanon.
The Trump administration has touted the latest ceasefire agreed to earlier in the week by the Lebanese government and Israel after U.S.-brokered talks in Washington. However, Hezbollah has rejected the agreement.
Meanwhile, Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones toward Bahrain and Kuwait that were intercepted early Saturday, Bahrain’s government said, and called on Tehran to halt attacks on Gulf neighbors that test a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East conflict.
Iran said that it targeted American military assets in both countries, after the U.S. attacked surveillance facilities on Qeshm Island and near Sirik that Iran said were used to protect borders and “ensure the security of navigation in international waters.” Tehran called the attack a ceasefire violation.
Later Saturday, U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces had shot down two Iranian attack drones over the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest exchanges came as the Trump administration presses Iran to make a deal to end the war, which has strained the global economy and threatened a hunger crisis in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries.