President Donald Trump declared on Wednesday that he is Iran’s “number one target” for assassination, telling reporters at the NATO summit in Ankara that he “may be gone too” as the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed. The remarks came hours after US Central Command announced a fresh wave of strikes on Iranian air-defence systems, radar installations and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) small boats, in retaliation for what it described as Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media confirmed explosions in several locations, including Bushehr, home to the country’s nuclear power complex, and reported the death of an IRGC member in Bandar Mahshahr.

In response, the IRGC launched drone and missile attacks targeting US-linked military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, according to Iran’s state-affiliated Fars News Agency. Kuwaiti authorities said they intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones, and that falling debris knocked out power lines. Trump, who said the memorandum of understanding with Iran “is over,” threatened further strikes and suggested he would now target civilian infrastructure. He insisted that any future escalation would be brief and would “make it safer, including for oil,” while repeating his red line that Iran must never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. “You can’t let lunatics have nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that without his presidency, Israel “wouldn’t exist.”

Viewed from Tehran, the US actions are a violation of the reciprocal-commitment framework that underpinned the short-lived truce. Iran’s foreign ministry stated that the MoU was “not established on the basis of trust but rather on the clear mechanism of ‘commitment for commitment’.” A source quoted by state-run Press TV warned that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked again and would retaliate at a ratio of at least two to one. The deputy foreign minister said Tehran would have to deal with Trump “in his own language” because he “understands the language of force better.”

Trump’s claim to top an Iranian kill list is rooted in the January 2020 US drone strike that killed IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani. US federal prosecutors secured a conviction in March against a man who admitted the IRGC had arranged his travel to the United States to plot Trump’s assassination. The president also faced two separate assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. With the ceasefire now declared void, no diplomatic channel is active, and oil prices have spiked amid the renewed disruption to Gulf shipping. The NATO summit, originally intended to focus on alliance cohesion, instead became the backdrop for an escalating US-Iran confrontation with no off-ramp in sight.