Looks like Donald Trump and the Pentagon have taken full advantage of the renewed lease of Saudi and Kuwaiti airspace. Just hours after negotiating a restart of Project Freedom, US forces have struck targets in the Strait of Hormuz in apparent retaliation for Iran’s attacks on shipping and US allies.
Fox News reports that US officials insist that this has not breached the ceasefire:
A U.S. strike on Iran’s Qeshm Port in the Strait of Hormuz and Bandar Abbas were reported Thursday, with U.S. officials telling Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin that this was neither a restart of the war nor an end to the ceasefire.
The U.S. military also struck Bandar Kargan in Minab, officials confirmed.
The development came as Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency also reported air defense activity in western Tehran.
Two other loud explosions were heard Thursday night, while eyewitnesses told Iran International they heard multiple blasts in Chitgar.
Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency also reported attacks and exchanges of fire across Iran’s southern Hormozgan province near Bandar Abbas, Bandar Khamir, Sirik and Qeshm Island, according to reports.
The IRGC would beg to differ, clearly. They claim to have damaged three American destroyers with counterattacks, forcing the ships to withdraw:
IRGC Navy: Following the violation of the ceasefire and the aggression by the U.S. military against an Iranian oil tanker near Jask, a large scale combined operation was launched against enemy destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz using anti ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles,…
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 7, 2026
…and kamikaze drones.”
The IRGC claims 3 U.S. warships were damaged and forced to withdraw from the area.
The IRGC has made similar claims during all of the hostilities. Those claims have been, at best, aspirational. Furthermore, Iran has been firing at ships and US allies since the start of Project Freedom in violation of the ceasefire and the agreement to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic.
CENTCOM offered a far different explanation for the exchange:
U.S. forces intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes as U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman, May 7.
Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small boats as USS Truxtun (DDG 103), USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115), and USS Mason (DDG 87) transited the international sea passage. No U.S. assets were struck.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. 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.
This would explain the position of the Fox News souce that this did not represent a “ceasefire breach.” For the first time in days, US forces responded to Iranian provocations in the Strait of Hormuz, targeting the sources of incoming fire and eliminating those positions. Reports of anti-aircraft activity in Tehran appear to be caused by drone incursions into the capital’s airspace. If so, those may be probes to allow US and Israeli forces to locate A-A assets in and near Tehran, which would hint at an escalation to come soon.
In a later post (written earlier), I posited that the Saudis may have leveraged their airspace to get Trump back to a more muscular position, and/or that Trump sent a proposal that was basically unchanged from the Islamabad talks to get the Saudis back on board. Read that when it comes up, but clearly the 24-hour contretemps between Washington and Riyadh has resulted in a change of posture from Trump. Stay tuned.
Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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