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.” Smoke plumes were visible in videos filmed by people in the nearby Israeli city of Eilat.
The U.S. military said it had completed an 11th night of strikes on Iran. Iranian air defenses activated near Tehran, and Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported explosions in Bushehr, East Azerbaijan, Hamadan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. The U.S. said its targets included aircraft hangars and drone storage sites.
The strikes followed an Iranian attack on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday that forced the crew to abandon the ship. Iran also continued attacks against U.S. allies in the region, launching attacks against Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz has become central to the conflict as the fighting increasingly focuses on control of the waterway, which is vital to global energy supplies.
Diplomacy under pressure
Before the latest strikes, Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni visited Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, to seek a revival of diplomatic efforts. It remained unclear what new arrangement could be reached to end the war after the interim ceasefire deal collapsed.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump offered a dim assessment of possible talks, saying the U.S. had “no interest in meeting.” He also signaled that U.S. forces could soon target an area of Iran near one of its main uranium-enrichment sites.
The previous day, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, opening a new front and threatening the flow of global oil supplies and trade. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to move millions of barrels of oil to market.