US targets Iran in ninth night of strikes in wake of US troop deaths – Middle East crisis live

The Guardian reports that the US military has begun a ninth night of strikes on Iran, with an interim deal meant to end the war appearing to have all but collapsed amid a deadlock over the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command said a service member died in northern Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, bringing confirmed American military fatalities since the war began to seventeen. Iran, for its part, said it struck two US bases in Kuwait, and its Revolutionary Guards claimed a surprise attack on a command centre in Syria. Kuwait and Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, have borne the brunt of Iranian strikes on Gulf neighbours since hostilities resumed this month, and Bahrain's interior ministry said air raid sirens sounded overnight. Iran's health ministry said on Saturday that fifty people had been killed and more than five hundred injured in US strikes over the past three weeks, the Guardian says.

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