Iran vows not to let aggression go unanswered after US violates truce

The Brent benchmark oil price jumped up by more than four per cent after US Central Comm­and announced the new wave of bombings, and China urged both sides to respect the truce and to resolve their dispute peacefully. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said negotiating a deal to halt the conflict could “take a few days”. According to Iranian media, Iran’s negotiators had been pushing for the memorandum to include the release of billions of frozen assets at talks in Qatar. The maritime safety monitor UKMTO said a blast damaged a tanker on the waterline off Oman — although the crew and vessel were reportedly safe after what was described as an “external explosion”. Iranian state media reported overnight blasts in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, and the country’s Revo­lutionary Guards said its forces had downed a US drone entering its airspace and had fired at an F-35 fighter jet. “The US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire … has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said. It added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation”, without elaborating. A senior spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces also warned that any resumption of US and Israeli air strikes on Iran w