HEADLINES IN BRIEF

US attacks Iran and Tehran retaliates across the Middle East as both vie for control of strait. READ MORE BELOW

Trump insists the strait will be open and proposes US fees. READ MORE BELOW

The UAE says Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. READ MORE BELOW

Trump says the agreement reached last month was "built to test" Iran, and that Tehran failed. READ MORE BELOW

Lebanese and Israeli delegations are meeting in Rome to continue US-mediated negotiations. READ MORE BELOW

IN DETAIL

Interim deal in tatters as US and Iran continue to trade blows

The US launched strikes on Iran early on Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate an American blockade of Iranian ports and charge ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.

The actions leave in tatters an interim deal meant to pause the fighting, reopen a waterway that is a crucial passage for the world's energy supplies, and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war.

The accord, now almost halfway through the 60-day period, was also supposed to address Iran's disputed nuclear program and other issues. Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region and threatened the global economy. 

The focus of the conflict now is the strait, through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime.

Iran effectively shut the passage during the war by attacking and threatening ships – a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage since it sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring at a time when world leaders were already struggling to address a rising cost of living.

The interim deal was supposed to reopen the waterway, but Iran has attacked some ships moving through the strait.

The US has now threatened to reopen the strait by force – but experts say that will require a much bigger armada, if not tens of thousands of American troops on Iranian soil.

The price of benchmark Brent crude oil rose to a one-month high of over $84 in trading early on Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war but threatening to make costs everywhere higher.

Trump insists strait will be open

The US military's Central Command said it struck areas around Abu Musa, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chahbahar, Jask and Konarak, targeting Iranian "coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities."

Iran acknowledged strikes around those areas, but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

"These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," the US military said.

Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Trump called it "another major attack."

"We're hitting them very hard. And it'll continue, and we'll see what happens," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "We're knocking out all of their offensive capability and we're controlling the straits. We're putting the blockade back."

Trump also provided new details on his suggestion that the US will charge tolls for ships going through the strait, an about-face after previously saying that it wouldn't. It's a change in US policy that, until now, said the strait should remain open to all without tolls – as it was before the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.

Attacks resume across the Middle East

The United Arab Emirates' Defense Ministry said early on Tuesday that Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.

The Emirati Defense Ministry said Iran launched two cruise missiles at the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah.

The attacks set both tankers ablaze, though the fires were extinguished. The attack on the tankers killed one Indian national and wounded six Indians and two Ukrainians according to the UAE, which also warned that it reserved the right to retaliate.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack on the tankers, saying the vessels "ignored repeated warnings".

"They chose to pass through a minefield and were subsequently targeted and disabled," the Guard said.

Bahrain also came under renewed attack early on Tuesday morning as Iran retaliated over the latest round of US airstrikes. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens three times, urging the public to seek shelter.

Jordan's military separately said it intercepted four missiles from Iran. Jordan hosts US forces and has come under attack by Tehran in recent days.

Trump says Iran failed a test

Earlier on Monday, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the agreement reached last month was "built to test" Iran, adding that "when you're dealing with sleazebags, (agreements) don’t mean much."

"They didn't honor the test," the president said.

Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The US has disputed that.

The American military and the United Nations' International Maritime Organization have tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route. The US has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on US-allied Arab states.

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal. 

Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.

"We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE," Trump said on social media. "All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait."

The president said the US would be "reimbursed" by 20% of the value of cargo to help cover "any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security."

There was no word on how that would work. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a trip to the region, said there would never be fees on those traveling through the strait.

The US military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports at midnight local time on Wednesday in Dubai.

Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon to resume

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Lebanese and Israeli delegations are meeting in Rome to continue US-mediated negotiations.

Last month, Lebanon and Israel announced a "framework agreement" outlining the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. On the ground, however, the agreement has stalled.

Before the fighting around the strait intensified, Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon repeatedly threatened to derail the interim deal in the Iran war.

A truce now exists in Lebanon, but it remains unclear whether it will hold if the US and Iran return to full-scale war.