US and Iran sink into violent cycle after latest strikes

By MAX BEARAK, YEGANEH TORBATI, ISMAEEL NAAR and ERIC SCHMITT

The United States and Iran exchanged fire for a second consecutive day Thursday, extending a pattern of hostilities that had all but shattered their fragile truce and left the Middle East suspended between war and peace.

Both countries appeared to intensify their attacks in this latest round, expanding the scope or number of targets. The U.S. military said overnight that it had struck more than 170 targets in Iran during the previous 48 hours, a significant uptick. And Jordan — which hosts some U.S. military forces but had not been a focus of Iran’s ire in recent flare-ups — said it had intercepted Iranian missiles in its airspace. Iran also said it had fired at U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf nations of Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

It was unclear whether the fighting would continue to worsen. Iran threatened on Thursday to expand its attacks to other U.S. military facilities in the region, a day after President Donald Trump said he thought the ceasefire was “over,” even as he suggested he was still open to peace.

Iran said 14 people have been killed and 78 injured in the latest round of tit-for-tat strikes, which began after Washington accused Iranian forces of targeting commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. military said its strikes had focused on military targets on the Iranian coast to degrade the threat to commercial shipping in the strait. Iran has not directly taken responsibility for strikes in the waterway, but has insisted that ships adhere to a designated route through its own territorial waters.

Iranian authorities said U.S. strikes overnight had hit a stretch of railway connecting Tehran to the northeastern city of Mashhad, where Iran’s slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was expected to be buried later Thursday. The claim could not immediately be verified and the U.S. military had no comment.

The burial Thursday follows days of funeral ceremonies for Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes at the start of the war. The events have been meticulously stage-managed by Iran across several cities to project national unity and defiance to Iran’s enemies.

Hours before the latest overnight U.S. strikes on Iran, Trump dismissed further talks on a long-term peace deal as “a waste of time,” and Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned, “Hit, and you’ll be hit.” But as he flew back to Washington, Trump said that Iran had called him because they “want to make a deal so badly.” Iran has not signaled publicly that any new negotiations are underway.

Here’s what else to know:

— Energy markets: Oil prices remained elevated after the latest round of fighting. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded at around $78 a barrel Thursday, down from its peak during the war but above its preconflict level of around $72.

— Funeral delays: The burial of Khamenei in the holy city of Mashhad was delayed by several hours Thursday. Iranian authorities said large crowds in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, where hundreds of thousands had gathered for the funeral procession Wednesday, had led to the delay.

— Qatar mediation: Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, spoke by phone Thursday with regional counterparts and condemned the attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for global shipping that Iran has sought to control.