Shafaqna Pakistan: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the mission to safeguard commercial shipping was temporary and that the four-week-old truce was still holding. “We’re not looking for a fight,” he said at a press conference, adding that while the ceasefire remains in effect, the situation is being closely monitored.
Iran fired missiles at US ships on Monday and attacked the UAE, a key regional ally of Washington, with missiles and drones. Shortly after Hegseth spoke on Tuesday, the UAE’s defence ministry said its air defences were again dealing with missile and drone attacks coming from Iran.
The United Arab Emirates said it came under Iranian missile and drone attacks on Tuesday, even as Washington maintained that a fragile ceasefire remained in place despite exchanges of fire a day earlier, when US forces sought to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military said it had destroyed six small Iranian boats, along with cruise missiles and drones, after President Donald Trump ordered naval escorts for stranded tankers through the strait under an operation dubbed “Project Freedom.”
The Gulf Arab state’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the attacks were a serious escalation and posed a direct threat to the country’s security, adding that the UAE reserved its “full and legitimate right” to respond.
There was no immediate comment on that from Iran, though earlier its parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, had said breaches of the ceasefire by the US and its allies endangered shipping through the strait, which carries a large share of the world’s oil and fertiliser supplies.
“We know well that the continuation of the current situation is unbearable for the United States, while we have not even begun yet,” he said in a social media post.
Source: Dunya News
