Baghdad, Iraq. The United States and Saudi Arabia said they launched strikes on Iran-backed groups in eastern Iraq on Wednesday, accusing them of carrying out drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Iran warned that blaming Tehran for the attacks was a “major miscalculation”.
Strikes in eastern Iraq
The U.S.-Saudi strikes came hours after the U.S. military said its air defences had prevented what it described as a surprise Iranian attack on U.S. troops in the region.
U.S. Central Command and Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said multiple sites across eastern Iraq were hit. They said the locations had been used by Iran to direct drone attacks.
Saudi Defence Ministry spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said Iran-backed militias had launched drones from Iraqi territory at oil facilities in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that its air defences destroyed several drones targeting the facilities.
The Saudi Defence Ministry said it was not seeking escalation but would respond to any “aggression”.
Hormuz proposal rejected
The developments came as Oman proposed a regional arrangement to resolve the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the war.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had rejected Oman’s proposal for regional joint management of the strait, saying it had no chance of success.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their forces struck three oil tankers in the strait and forced them to stop after they ignored warnings over what the Guards described as an “unsafe and illegal route”. Reuters could not immediately verify the account.
The IRGC Navy said it retained full control of the waterway and warned that what it called unlawful U.S. military interference and instructions to vessels in the region would not go unanswered.
Renewed fighting
The IRGC also said it fired several ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations in Jordan on Wednesday.
The latest exchanges followed a brief pause in the fighting after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly called off a two-week U.S. bombing campaign, with Iran appearing to follow suit.