The US military did not announce new strikes against Iran on Friday and Saturday after attacking the country for 13 straight nights.
CNN reported that Department of War officials disclosed on Saturday that operations are “on hold.”
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Axios also reported that President Donald Trump had directed the US military not to conduct new strikes in Iran for now.
It is unclear if the suspension of strikes is only temporary, as Mr Trump has also directed the military to remain prepared for a possible return to major combat. Some American media reported that the pause was because of the defence department’s concern that the US was running out of interceptor missiles to stop Iran’s missile and drone attacks on US interests in the Middle East.
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Meanwhile, the tension in the new front of the Iran war is escalating. On Saturday, Yemen’s rebel group, the Houthis, fired missiles and drones at Aramco-affiliated facilities in Jizan and Yanbu, two of Saudi Arabia’s most strategically important oil facilities on the Red Sea.
The Iranian-backed group said its strikes were retaliation for Saudi attacks on Hodeida, Yemen’s port city on the Red Sea coast.
“The first targeted sensitive Aramco-affiliated facilities in Jizan with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” the militant group’s spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a post on X.
He added that “The second operation targeted sensitive Aramco-affiliated facilities in Yanbu with several ballistic missiles.”
Concerns about US pause
The US decision to pause its strikes on Iran came amid concern that escalating the war could “dangerously drain” the Pentagon’s diminishing military stockpile in the region.
Vice President JD Vance and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, both raised concerns that ratcheting up the war could drain the US’s diminishing stockpile of interceptors and other air defence munitions in the Middle East.
The Iranian army also attributed the pause to the US failure to achieve its goals “in the Strait of Hormuz and in weakening Iran.”
“The situation is chaotic and undesirable for America,” the army’s spokesperson, Abolfazl Shekarchi, said.
According to Al Jazeera, Mr Shekarchi said the pause could be a “new strategy” and that the possibility of Washington withdrawing from the war was “conditional on the Zionists’ permission.”
The Iranian parliament has also begun reviewing a draft law on the management of the Strait of Hormuz, along with the judicial, economic and civil sub-committees.
Iran was also in talks with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and Saturday.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the talks were useful, “progress was made,” and that “technical and political consultations” between the two are still ongoing.
