Iran and US persist in their attacks, as Pakistan tries to keep diplomacy alive

Diplo­mats sought Tues­day to sal­vage the col­lapsed in­ter­im deal be­tween Iran and the Unit­ed States even as both coun­tries con­tin­ued to launch at­tacks in a 10th day of re­newed fight­ing.

Iran­ian In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Es­kan­dar Mo­meni’s vis­it to Pak­istan, a key me­di­a­tor in the con­flict, point­ed to in­ten­si­fied diplo­mat­ic ef­forts, but it was un­clear what new arrange­ment might be reached to end the war.

Ship­ping through the Strait of Hor­muz has large­ly stalled, and as the fight for con­trol over the wa­ter­way in­ten­si­fies, both sides have tar­get­ed civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture in the re­gion re­lied on by mil­lions of peo­ple.

A bar­rage of U.S. strikes hasn’t com­pelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and nat­ur­al gas was shipped be­fore the war. The U.S. con­tin­ued its airstrikes on the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic ear­ly Tues­day, and Iran at­tacked a tanker in the strait, forc­ing the crew to aban­don the ship.

Iran al­so kept up at­tacks against U.S. al­lies in the re­gion. Sirens in Bahrain and Kuwait warned res­i­dents on Tues­day af­ter­noon of in­com­ing pro­jec­tiles.

In the Red Sea, 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.

The es­ca­la­tion has pushed oil prices high­er. Bench­mark Brent crude trad­ed Tues­day above $90 a bar­rel and reg­u­lar gaso­line in the U.S. climbed to an av­er­age of $4 a gal­lon, keep­ing pres­sure on Amer­i­cans’ wal­lets ahead of midterm elec­tions this fall.

Iran­ian of­fi­cial be­gins meet­ings in Pak­istan

Mo­meni met Pak­istan’s army chief Field Mar­shal Asim Mu­nir, ac­cord­ing to two of­fi­cials who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the closed-door ne­go­ti­a­tions. Mo­meni lat­er met Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif.

In a state­ment, Sharif ex­pressed deep con­cern over the re­cent es­ca­la­tion be­tween the U.S. and Iran, and he urged all sides to ex­er­cise re­straint and avoid ac­tions that could fur­ther desta­bi­lize the re­gion.

Pak­istan’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and Mu­nir, who serves as both the chief of army staff and de­fense forces, played a key role in bro­ker­ing last month’s in­ter­im agree­ment be­tween the Unit­ed States and Iran. Is­lam­abad has been work­ing to per­suade both sides to re­turn to the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble to re­solve out­stand­ing is­sues un­der the June mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio has said the U.S. re­mained open to ne­go­ti­at­ing with Iran but that “it has to be re­al.” It re­mains un­clear whether Tehran will of­fer any­thing that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump would con­sid­er “re­al”.

A deep lev­el of mis­trust per­sists on both sides. Iran came un­der sur­prise at­tack in June 2025 and again in Feb­ru­ary while it was en­gag­ing in nu­clear ne­go­ti­a­tions with the U.S. The in­ter­im deal un­rav­eled when Iran re­sumed at­tacks on ships in the Strait of Hor­muz, which was sup­posed to be re­opened un­der the agree­ment.

US strikes come as ships at­tacked

The U.S. mil­i­tary’s Cen­tral Com­mand said Tues­day it tar­get­ed “Iran­ian mil­i­tary com­mand cen­ters, mar­itime ca­pa­bil­i­ties, mis­sile and drone launch sites and air de­fense sys­tems.” It re­leased more footage of bomb­ings that tar­get­ed sites in Iran.

“Amer­i­can forces re­main pos­tured and pre­pared to hold Iran ac­count­able for un­war­rant­ed ag­gres­sion to­ward civil­ian mariners seek­ing to freely and open­ly tran­sit the strait,” the com­mand said.

Iran­ian state me­dia re­port­ed that ex­plo­sions were heard in Fars, Hor­moz­gan, Il­am, Ker­man, and Sis­tan and Baluchis­tan provinces.

The British mil­i­tary’s Unit­ed King­dom Mar­itime Trade Op­er­a­tions cen­ter said a tanker came un­der at­tack ear­ly Tues­day in the strait off Oman, forc­ing the crew to aban­don the ves­sel.

Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard claimed the at­tack, as well as two oth­er at­tacks on ships Mon­day in the wa­ter­way.

The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. mil­i­tary has en­cour­aged ships to trav­el to avoid Iran’s con­trol.

Iran strikes US al­lies around the re­gion

Tehran al­so hit U.S.-al­lied coun­tries through­out the Mid­dle East.

Jor­dan’s mil­i­tary said Tues­day that Iran tar­get­ed it with five drones and three mis­siles, all of which were shot down. Bahrain sound­ed its mis­sile alert sirens Tues­day af­ter­noon as an­oth­er Iran­ian bar­rage tar­get­ed the is­land king­dom, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

The Kuwaiti gov­ern­ment said Iran had struck de­sali­na­tion and pow­er plants for a fourth straight day on Mon­day night. Au­thor­i­ties said the at­tacks sparked fires and caused dam­age.

Some 90% of Kuwait’s drink­ing wa­ter comes from de­sali­na­tion, mak­ing the at­tacks a mat­ter of life and death for the tiny na­tion.

U.S. strikes have been hit­ting elec­tri­cal equip­ment in Iran as well, and Iran­ian of­fi­cials al­so have said Amer­i­cans tar­get­ed wa­ter fa­cil­i­ties.

—IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL and MU­NIR AHMED | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Jon Gam­brell re­port­ed from Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.