SerpApi.Org
July 22 (UPI) -- The United States and Iran traded attacks overnight and into Wednesday morning as Washington sent mixed signals about prospects for diplomacy.
U.S. Central Command said it started its latest wave of strikes at 7 p.m. EDT and completed them at 8:15 p.m., hitting military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities and military logistics infrastructure associated with Iran's control of the vital energy transportation route.
State-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported U.S. attacks in the southern Iranian provinces of Khuzestan, Hormozgan and Sistan and Baluchestan, as well as northwestern East Azarbaijan Province.
Early Wednesday, the Iranian Army announced retaliatory strikes targeting Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan and Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.
Iran's army said it used one-way drones to target accommodation facilities and equipment warehouses at Al-Azraq and warehouses and heavy-aircraft aircraft hangers in Bahrain, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Though the war began in late February, an April cease-fire halted most of the fighting and was followed by negotiations that led to a June agreement toward ending the war.
A dispute over what the agreement meant for control of the Strait of Hormuz preceded the resumption of fighting earlier this month. Iran says the agreement recognizes its authority over transit through the vital energy route, while the United States says Tehran committed to freedom of navigation through the strait.
Fighting resumed after Iran attacked three commercial vessels transiting the strait, followed by U.S. attacks on Iran. Each accuses the other of violating the agreement.
Prospects for diplomacy have appeared distant since and diminished further when President Donald Trump announced in a White House press conference Tuesday that the U.S. military would attack Iran's Pickaxe Mountain "very soon."
Trump has said that the United States "obliterated" Iran's Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities in strikes in June 2025. U.S. officials now suspect that Iran may have moved nuclear infrastructure into Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified underground compound in Iran's central Zagros mountain range just south of Natanz.
Asked if he believed there were centrifuges in the mountain, Trump was noncommittal but said the U.S. military would soon attack the facility.
"And there's not a thing they can do about it," he said. "You know, normally I wouldn't say that, would never say that. If I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that. But we'll be hitting that area pretty soon and very heavily."
Concerning diplomacy, Trump said Iran "desperately" wants to resume diplomacy, but the United States is not interested "until they're ready to meet in a meaningful way."
But in Manila on Wednesday for an ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States is "committed to diplomacy" with Iran but that its overtures are being rejected because of Tehran's failure to live up to its commitments regarding the Strait of Hormuz.
"The United States remains open and willing to engage in positive, constructive negotiations and talks so long as the commitments that are made are kept," he said during a press conference.
"And when those commitments are not kept, which is what's happened in this particular case, then there will be consequences."
