Iran pulled out of technical talks scheduled for Sunday with the US, blaming recent attacks on the country and what it said were unmet conditions of the two sides' memorandum of understanding (MoU), as a fresh wave of strikes shredded the fraying interim ceasefire.
"For example one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds, if there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled," Mehdi Fazaeili, a member of the office that preserves and publishes the works of Iran's supreme leader, told state television.
The cancellation came as Iran launched missiles and drones at US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain early Sunday, shortly after President Donald Trump threatened to wipe out the Iranian leadership if it did not stick to the interim agreement to end the war.
"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started," Trump said on social media. "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"
About an hour after his post, Kuwait's army said its air defences were responding to missile and drone attacks, while Bahrain reported sirens sounding. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its navy and air forces had targeted US military sites in the two countries, adding that American bases in the region "will experience hell in the coming days". It said US strikes had violated the ceasefire and would bring about "the complete halt of all diplomatic processes".
A US official, confirming the facilities had been targeted, told Reuters there were no reported American casualties or major damage, though the situation was still unfolding. Kuwait's army said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles with no damage or casualties. In Bahrain, where alarms sounded a second time later in the day, authorities said an Iranian attack had damaged a residential building in Muharraq province, with no casualties reported. Manama urged the UN Security Council to convene an urgent session to hold Iran accountable.
The exchanges followed fresh US strikes inside Iran. US Central Command said its forces had acted after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday — the second such attack in days, after a cargo ship was hit on Thursday in the escalation that triggered the latest round.
"Iran was given a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement but elected not to," Central Command said, describing its strikes as a direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping. It said it had hit Iranian military surveillance, communications, air defence, drone storage and mine-laying facilities. Explosions were heard in Sirik in southern Iran, state broadcaster IRIB said. The Guards were defiant: "America's blind shots at Sirik will not resolve our dominance over the Strait of Hormuz."
Control of the Strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global oil and LNG supplies before the conflict, remains central. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said responsibility for restoring maritime traffic to pre-war levels lay solely with Tehran, and urged others not to intervene "in Iran's administration of the strait".
Washington has been promoting a southern lane along the coast of Oman, while Tehran — which ultimately aims to charge fees for use of the waterway — wants ships to take a northern route through its waters and under its control.
Hundreds of vessels stranded in the strait have begun leaving over the past fortnight, sending oil prices back close to pre-war levels. Even as the attacks continued Sunday morning, CMA CGM's Galapagos container ship exited the strait in what the shipping group called an important milestone in a regional context that remained complex and required constant vigilance.
