U.S. military says it shot down Iranian drones launched toward Strait of Hormuz

The Pentagon is viewed from the window of an airplane Aug. 27, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wisc. -- The U.S. military said it shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and then struck some of the Islamic Republic’s coastal surveillance radar sites in response, raising the risk to a shaky ceasefire as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran.

“The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” U.S. Central Command said on social media.

The military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments, which has sent energy prices spiking and posed political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of the midterm congressional elections.

U.S. Central Command said it hit the radar sites, including an island in the strait, “to defend against further attacks.”

It was the latest in back-and-forth attacks that have strained the tenuous ceasefire in the war and efforts to reach a deal to extend that truce. Earlier this week, Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s main airport, killing one person, wounding dozens and briefly closing the airfield.

Despite the attacks raising new concerns that the ceasefire could collapse, Trump told reporters Friday that “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well.”

“We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” Trump said at an event with farmers in Wisconsin. “The very tough way is maybe the easier way, but we’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.”

Trump increasingly appears to be boxed in on a conflict that has settled into a holding pattern. U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement a week ago to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program. But Trump has called for unspecified changes and Iranian officials have shown no public signs of signing off on the deal.

Asked on Friday why it was taking so long, Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do. They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while.”

He said the Iranians still have 21 per cent to 22 per cent of their missiles.

His administration also has touted the latest ceasefire agreed to this week by the Lebanese government and Israel after U.S.-brokered talks in Washington. However, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group has rejected the agreement and new attacks have put it at further risk.

The Israeli military on Friday struck multiple parts of southern Lebanon and issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the fighting. The strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern Lebanon, the state news agency reported.

The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, in an encounter Friday with militants in southern Lebanon.

The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, also threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz because Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon.

Besides the drone interception in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military said earlier Friday that its forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Iran in the Indian Ocean as the United States seeks to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods.

The U.S. also targeted Iran’s energy sector with new sanctions on a group of people, firms and tankers.

Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press