Iranian media reported that US strikes hit bridges, rail and airport infrastructure, while CENTCOM said it targeted military capabilities. Retaliatory attacks are pulling Gulf states deeper into the crisis.
The US Treasury on 10 July sanctioned Dubai-based Iranian banker Ali Ansari, alleging he invested embezzled Iranian funds in property across Europe — including through Luxembourg-registered holding companies — for the benefit of supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. Ansari is not on the EU sanctions list, leaving Luxembourg under no EU-law obligation to freeze his assets; its authorities have not commented.
Oman, Qatar and Pakistan raced this weekend to revive US-Iran diplomacy after Donald Trump declared the ceasefire over following two nights of American strikes, with control of the Strait of Hormuz the central dispute.
Iran buried assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the Imam Reza shrine, closing a vast state funeral clouded by an unresolved succession: his proclaimed heir, Mojtaba Khamenei, remains unseen.
Ali Khamenei's six-day state funeral reached Iraq's holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on 8 July, four months after the Iranian Supreme Leader was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes. His son Mojtaba, named successor by the Assembly of Experts, remains unseen, deepening uncertainty over Iran's leadership after a war that closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent oil above $120.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired at least two missiles at commercial ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz overnight into 7 July, striking a Qatari LNG carrier and setting it on fire. Two vessels were badly damaged but no casualties were reported. The strikes are the first in the chokepoint since a US-Iran truce took hold in June, and pushed crude prices higher as Europe watches its energy lifeline.
Iran is holding a vast, days-long funeral for slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, choreographed as a demonstration of regime strength even as his successor son Mojtaba stays out of view.
The United States and Iran concluded two days of indirect, Qatari- and Pakistani-mediated talks in Doha on 2 July without resolving control of the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for about a quarter of seaborne oil. The round focused on maritime traffic and unfreezing Iranian funds under June's Islamabad Memorandum. Oil fell to four-month lows, and the next round awaits the six-day funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei consolidates power.
Iran began six days of funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei on 3 July, four months after the supreme leader was assassinated in the opening hours of the US–Israeli war. Officials expect crowds in the tens of millions before his burial in Mashhad on 9 July, while his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei — chosen by the Assembly of Experts in March — has yet to appear in public. US–Iran talks in Doha are paused for the funeral, and oil prices have fallen back to near pre-war levels.
A senior US official says Washington and Tehran have agreed to stop attacking each other and return to talks in Doha on 30 June, a de-escalation that has steadied oil prices and drawn cautious EU welcome.
After all but closing the Strait of Hormuz since late February, Iran turned the world's busiest oil chokepoint into a tollbooth, charging tankers up to $2 million a crossing. A US-brokered memorandum has paused the fees for 60 days, but the dispute over whether a state can charge the world to cross an international strait is far from settled.
Two waves of cyberattacks in June 2026 disrupted card payments, ATMs and online banking at Iran's largest state banks, with a group calling itself Black Wolves claiming responsibility. The outages revive memories of the 2025 Predatory Sparrow assaults on Bank Sepah and the Nobitex crypto exchange, and underscore how financial-system sabotage has become a frontline weapon in the wider Middle East confrontation.
The IAEA's director general says inspections of Iran's nuclear sites are 'going to happen' under the Islamabad Memorandum, but Iran says access to bombed sites awaits a final deal. For the EU, which triggered snapback sanctions in 2025 and co-sponsored a June 2026 board resolution, restoring verification is the central test of whether Iran's programme can return under international oversight.
Iran's parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, called the US-brokered deal that ended the 2026 Iran war 'a declaration of America's defeat.' The Pakistan-mediated Islamabad Memorandum trades an end to US and Israeli strikes and sanctions relief for Iranian curbs on uranium enrichment — but a clash over IAEA inspections, and a split between Tehran's pragmatists and hardliners, leaves the peace untested. For Europe, the payoff is already visible in falling crude prices.
Iran has told the IAEA it will not allow inspectors back into the three nuclear facilities bombed a year ago, deepening a verification standoff just as Tehran and Washington advance a 60-day roadmap toward a final agreement — leaving the watchdog unable to account for some 440 kg of high-enriched uranium.
US and Iranian delegations meeting at the Bürgenstock resort above Lake Lucerne agreed what mediators Qatar and Pakistan called a roadmap toward a final deal within 60 days, including a Strait of Hormuz communication line, a Lebanon de-confliction cell and the return of IAEA inspectors. The diplomacy unfolded as President Trump publicly threatened fresh strikes, leaving the core nuclear and sanctions questions unresolved and oil markets watching the Gulf.
Washington has issued a 60-day general licence authorising the sale of Iranian crude, the first such opening since 2018. The move, tied to an interim deal over the Strait of Hormuz, pushed Brent lower and could ease Europe's energy-driven inflation.
Qatar kept four LNG tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz on 22 June even as Iran-driven disruption emptied the waterway, holding the line between a contained Gulf crisis and a renewed European gas-price shock.
The first round of formal U.S.-Iran post-ceasefire talks ended at the Bürgenstock resort with a road map toward a final deal in 60 days, sending oil lower and equities higher even as the enrichment dispute remained unresolved.
As Donald Trump hails a 14-point agreement to end the war with Iran, Luxembourg's foreign minister Xavier Bettel offered a four-word caveat - 'It's a long time till Friday' - that captured Europe's wary mood. EU institutions welcomed the deal while tying sanctions relief to verified changes in Tehran's behaviour, and the bargain's hardest questions on uranium and verification remain deferred.