Iran, US reach outline ceasefire deal after latest air strikes: report
US military downs five drones and hits a ground station, triggering Iranian retaliation
The United States and Iran have reached an outline agreement to extend their ceasefire pending the approval of President Donald Trump, according to an Axios report, after Iran targeted a US air base in Kuwait on Thursday in the wake of US strikes on what Washington described as an Iranian drone operation.
According to the report by Axios, the two sides agreed on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to extend the truce and launch negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program but the plan still needed Trump’s signoff.
Oil prices reversed course to trade lower after the report. The latest attacks, while limited, highlighted the fragility of negotiations to turn the tenuous early-April ceasefire into a lasting agreement to end the three-month-old war that has killed thousands, and reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.
US Central Command said US forces had shot down five Iranian attack drones and struck a ground control station in the port city of Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a sixth. Kuwaiti forces had then intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the country, which hosts a large US base.
“These actions were measured, purely defensive and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” a US official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about military operations, said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted a US base in response to what it described as an early morning US attack near Bandar Abbas airport, Tasnim news agency reported. The IRGC said it targeted the US airbase from which the attack on the control station near Bandar Abbas was launched, without identifying the base.