Tehran, July 23:
Missile alert sirens sounded Wednesday in Jordan’s port city of Aqaba as attacks across the Middle East overshadowed diplomatic efforts in Pakistan to salvage an interim ceasefire deal that has collapsed.
Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles in the Iranian attack, while two others fell in “uninhabited areas.” Plumes of smoke could be seen overhead in Aqaba in videos filmed by people in the nearby Israeli city of Eilat.
The US military said earlier Wednesday that it had completed an 11th night of strikes on Iran. Iranian air defences activated near the capital, Tehran, and Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that explosions rocked Bushehr, East Azerbaijan, Hamadan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. The US said its targets included aircraft hangars and drone storage sites.
That came after Iran attacked a tanker in the strait Tuesday, forcing the crew to abandon the ship. Iran also kept up attacks against US allies in the region. Iran also launched attacks against Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.
Before the latest strikes, Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni visited Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, seeking to revive diplomacy. But it was unclear what new arrangement might be reached to end the war, which lately has become a battle for control over the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway vital to world energy supplies.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump gave a dim view on possible talks, saying the US had “no interest in meeting.” He signalled that US forces could soon target an area of Iran close to one of its main sites for enriching uranium.
The previous day, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels opened a new front against Saudi Arabia by declaring a naval blockade of the kingdom, threatening the flow of global oil supplies and trade. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked up, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market.