US and Iran vie for Strait of Hormuz, waterway key to global energy
supplies, in latest attacks
[July 13, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States and Iran each
asserted Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of
attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any
diplomacy to end the war.
The attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship Sunday in the
strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway that
once saw a fifth of the world's traded crude oil and natural gas pass
through it remained the key issue in negotiations. The narrow mouth of
the Persian Gulf has seen shipping disrupted since the start of the war
as Iran maintained a chokehold on it by attacking commercial vessels
around it, intimidating shippers.
Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of
an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to
the war. Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the
strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war fully could
resume.
“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic
consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in
a statement.
US says it strikes dozens of targets in Iran
The U.S. military’s Central Command described its forces as hitting
dozens of sites in the strikes Monday, including air defense systems,
radar sites, missile and drone equipment and small boats.
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,”
Central Command said. “Iran does not control it.”
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, also called for the
strait to be open as it was before the war.
“The Strait of Hormuz has to be opened, freedom of navigation has to be
respected,” she said.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power center in the
country's theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, sharply
rejected America's statement.
“The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue
and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its
illegal interference in it,” the Guard said.
Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the
U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait said it was intercepting hostile fire.
There was no immediate word on damage in either country.
In Jordan, the kingdom's military said it shot down four Iranian
missiles in an incident that "resulted in zero casualties or material
damage.” Jordan also hosts U.S. military forces and aircraft.
In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and
Markazi provinces and at least two people were killed, according to
state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported
strikes on Sistan and Baluchestan province as well.
Iranian attacks on Sunday stretched Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and
even Oman — whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. Oman,
which long has been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West,
summoned an Iranian diplomat to criticize the attack.
Meanwhile Monday, a base belonging to the armed wing of the Kurdistan
Freedom Party, an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in Iraq’s
semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region, came under drone attack. Rebaz
Sharifi, commander of the Kurdistan Militia Corps, said the strikes
targeted the group’s Chamshar base, without giving details on casualties
or damage. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
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Three boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a
plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background, off Bandar
Abbas, Iran, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP)
Fighting focuses on the status of the strait
The U.S. military early Sunday said it hit some 140 targets,
including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps,
communication equipment and other sites — a far-heavier set of
attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” U.S. President Donald
Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S.
military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait
and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.
Iran described the strait as being closed, while the U.S. military
and Trump asserted that the strait remained open.
Iran’s chokehold on the strait, however, has loosened as the U.S.
military provided support to vessels moving along a southern route
hugging the coastline of Oman. That new route has angered Iran,
which launched repeated attacks on ships using it.
Iran’s grip on the strait led to a global energy crisis, though oil
prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed
Washington for the chaos gripping the Mideast.
“Considering the memorandum of understanding’s fourteen clauses, the
Americans have, in this brief period, in one way or another,
slaughtered its various components,” Baghaei told journalists
Monday.
Baghaei also said Iran wouldn't agree to visits by the International
Atomic Energy Agency to Iranian nuclear sites bombed in 2025 by the
U.S., where Tehran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is
believed still to be.
Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was
“over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have
continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.
A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of
anonymity to discuss talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire
continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone
with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since
the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the
funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would
avenge his killing.
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Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Stella Martany
in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.
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