Middle East crisis live: US launches new round of airstrikes to ‘swiftly punish’ Iran after American troops killed

Fresh attack comes after Iran’s supreme leader warned Washington would pay for ‘seeking to escalate’ the conflict Two US troops killed and one missing in Jordan after Iranian attacks We reported in an earlier post that sirens had been activated in Bahrain, which hosts a US naval base and has been targeted by Iran in recent days. A journalist from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency has confirmed sirens had rung out in Bahrain’s capital Manama. We will bring you more details as they come in. A frustrated US is exploring how to bend Iran to its will, after Trump described the country’s leaders as “scum” and “sick people” at this month’s Nato summit, though it is not obvious how that can be done without a substantial ground campaign, for which the US is not prepared for, nor has the appetite for. Military escalation was considered at a White House Situation Room meeting on Tuesday, followed by leaks that the options considered included bombing another deep-lying nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain – which would have no effect on the now critical Hormuz dynamic – or a seizure of the strategic Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports would flow if there was no US blockade. Continue reading...