Live Updates: Mideast Hostilities Flare, Testing Fragile U.S.-Iran Truce

 

Live Updates: Mideast Hostilities Flare, Testing Fragile U.S.-Iran Truce

 

Bahrain said it had come under attack by Iranian drones, an apparent retaliation after the United States launched strikes on Iranian military sites overnight.

 

Aaron Boxerman

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/27/world/us-iran-strikes-hormuz#heres-the-latest

 

Here’s the latest.

Bahrain said it was targeted early Saturday by Iranian drones, an apparent retaliation after the United States launched strikes on Iranian military sites overnight. The flaring of hostilities underscored the limits of the truce between Washington and Tehran.

 

There were no immediate reports of damage in Bahrain, which accused Tehran of “destabilizing security, exporting chaos and undermining regional stability.” The Iranian government did not immediately comment. Before the cease-fire, Iran regularly launched strikes against neighboring Gulf states in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks.

 

The drone attack came hours after the U.S. military said it had attacked Iranian missile drones and coastal radar sites. U.S. officials framed the strikes as a direct response to Iran’s firing of attack drones a day earlier at a container ship passing near the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump said on Friday that Iran had “foolishly” violated the cease-fire with the attack in the strait.

 

Iran’s foreign ministry accused the U.S. on Saturday of violating the cease-fire and vowed that the Iranian military would “defend the country’s sovereignty, security, and national interests with all its strength.”

 

Before the overnight clashes, the deal between the United States and Iran signed earlier this month had led to relative calm in the region, with an uptick in vessels traversing the Strait of Hormuz and signs of an emerging agreement, backed by the Trump administration, to wind down the war’s second front in Lebanon.

 

The agreement pushed discussion of many of the thornier questions between the United States and Iran, including the future of Iran’s nuclear programs, to a 60-day negotiation period, which began in Switzerland at the start of the week. While the deal did stipulate an end to the Iranian blockade of the strait for at least 60 days, Iran has insisted that it maintains authority over managing traffic through the waterway.

 

Both the U.S. and Iran have sought to demonstrate that they emerged victorious from the conflict, which is leading them to test one another’s red lines, analysts say. For now, neither the U.S. nor Iran seems interested in a return to full-blown war.

 

The war began in late February with a massive joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that drew in much of the Middle East and sent global energy prices skyrocketing. It also ignited a war in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah, an armed group backed by Iran.

 

On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it had brokered a rare agreement between Israel and Lebanon that U.S. officials hope could build toward an end to the conflict there. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with Iran in March, according to  Lebanese authorities.

 

Lebanon’s government is distinct from Hezbollah, long the country’s most powerful force. Under the U.S.-backed agreement, Israeli forces would withdraw from two occupied parts of southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese army to take full control there.

 

Israeli forces will still occupy much of the country’s south for an unknown period, however. And Hezbollah was quick to reject the deal, which also prompted scattered demonstrations by opponents in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.