CAIRO — The United States and Iran each fired barrages of missiles Thursday, as the pattern of back-and-forth strikes took hold again and hope dimmed for a quick end to the five-month conflict. Following a few days of respite, fears of a wider war have grown, with renewed fighting threatening to engulf even more countries. Jordan said Thursday it intercepted Iranian missiles for the second consecutive day, while Kuwait said a strike in the northern part of the country killed one person. Also this week, drones caused fires on ships at an Egyptian port, and Saudi Arabia said it came under fire from Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The war -- which in its early days U.S. President Donald Trump said would last four to five weeks, although he warned it could take longer -- has caused the price of fuel to spike and roiled the global economy. As months have passed, concerns have deepened about using up the stockpile of weapons the U.S. needs to defend its bases and allies. The war is unpopular among Americans, and a new AP-NORC poll says Trump’s approval rating on Iran has dipped slightly since last month. The recent pause in fighting, which began over the weekend and spurred hopes among mediators of diplomatic progress, ended with increasing missile and drone attacks across many countries in the Middle East. “We note with concern that the security situation remains precarious,” said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi, whose country has been a key mediator. Talks “are ongoing to normalize the situation, particularly the situation in the Strait of Hormuz,” he told reporters. The U.S. and Iran trade strikes An Iranian strike hit a Chinese firm’s building in Kuwait on Thursday, severely damaging the structure and killing a worker, Kuwait’s military said, hours after Jordan’s air defences shot down five missiles launched from Iran. No injuries were reported from Jordan’s interception, the country’s state-run Petra news agency said, quoting the spokesman for the country’s armed forces. Both Jordan and Kuwait host American troops. The attacks came after the U.S. military said it completed “a heavy wave of strikes against Iran” in response to an earlier Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Jordan. U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces struck dozens of targets belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance and defence sites. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said three people were killed and two were wounded in a strike on the island of Qeshm, which lies off the Iranian mainland in the Strait of Hormuz -- a crucial waterway for the world’s energy supplies that has been at the center of the conflict. The latest barrage came after the U.S. partnered with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to strike Iran-backed militias in Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. Fires reported on two natural gas vessels at an Egyptian port Also on Wednesday, British maritime security firm Ambrey said drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the Egyptian port of Damietta. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a U.S.-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker. No injuries were reported. The office of the Egyptian prime minister said initial investigations showed the fires had been caused by a drone. In a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said investigators were able to recover traces of the drone and will try to determine where it came from. Egypt, a close U.S. ally and regional mediator, has until now been spared direct military action during the war. A strike by Iran or its allies, if confirmed, would mark a significant widening of the conflict. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have denied they were behind the attack. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi didn’t outright deny Iranian involvement but said: “Egypt is an important friend and partner in the region, and its security is of utmost importance to us.” “We must all be vigilant against Israeli plots and false-flag operations designed to undermine regional peace,” he said on X. “The threat is clear, mutual, and fearful of Muslim solidarity.” The war has wreaked havoc on the global economy The conflict has wreaked havoc on the global economy as energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have ground to a near halt. Much of the diplomacy around ending the war has focused on reopening the strait, through which 20 per cent of oil and natural gas shipments passed in peacetime. The already limited traffic through the strait has plunged to wartime lows during the recent exchange of strikes, from 82 ships during the week of July 13-19 to just 39 from July 20-26, Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping data and analysis firm, said in an webinar. Fighting elsewhere has squeezed energy supplies further. Saudi Arabia has accused Iraqi militias of firing drones against its oil facilities over the past days. An umbrella group of Iraqi militias initially denied the allegations, while the Houthi rebels said they had attacked Saudi energy facilities as part of a separate but related conflict. The Houthis have also declared a blockade of Saudi shipping and threatened to choke off another crucial Middle East trade route, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden. That route became even more important during the war, as Saudi Arabia used it to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. While some Saudi oil exports are continuing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait despite the blockade, Lloyd’s List Intelligence said much of that oil now follows an expensive and time-consuming workaround: It travels from Saudi Arabia on tankers to the Egyptian city of Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea coast before being pumped overland through a pipeline to the Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir. Then it’s loaded on tankers again. The Suez Canal is not deep enough to handle the largest and most economical tankers when they are fully loaded with oil. Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman met Wednesday with Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly about the private meetings. They said the Saudi decision to join the U.S. attacks against the Iraqi militias was meant to send a message to Iran that the kingdom would not tolerate Iran or its proxies targeting the Saudi oil industry and other critical infrastructure. At the same time, the defence minister underscored to Trump and Vance that the Saudis want to see a de-escalation in the war and for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations. ------ Samy Magdy and Elena Becatoros, The Associated Press Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Aamer Madhani in Washington; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Fatma Khaled in Cairo; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
