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(Bloomberg) — The US struck Iran for a third time in a week, prompting retaliatory attacks on at least five Arab nations as Washington and Tehran issued conflicting declarations over whether the Strait of Hormuz remains open to shipping.

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The Islamic Republic responded early Sunday with drone and missile assaults on American allies across the Middle East, including Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar. So far, only minor damage was reported and no casualties.

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Iran said the Hormuz strait would now be closed “until further notice.” US Central Command denied that, saying that waterway was still open to all vessels and the US military is prepared to ensure freedom of navigation. The Joint Maritime Information Center, a global monitoring body, reported Sunday it was still possible to transit the strait’s southern route.

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President Donald Trump also said the strait remained open as he spoke Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We bombed the hell out of them last night,” he said. “They’re very, very evil and sick people.”

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US Central Command earlier said Trump had ordered fresh strikes targeting Tehran’s ability to attack commercial vessels after Iranian forces hit a Cyprus-flagged container ship. 

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Iranian media reported blasts on the country’s southern coast, including at the energy and petrochemical hubs of Bushehr and Asalouyeh, the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Bandar-e Dayyer, and the Sirik area near the Hormuz strait, a global energy chokepoint. A communication tower was hit in the southern province of Kerman, injuring two people, according to the Mehr news agency.

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Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that 10 or 11 missiles were fired at Qeshm Island later Sunday by the “enemy,” without causing casualties. Kuwait said a drone attack damaged a Kuwait Oil Co. drilling platform.

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And although US Central Command said it had concluded strikes early Sunday, a US official told Axios that it conducted a “few” strikes on missile and air defense systems as well as small boats run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps around the strait.

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The increasingly heated tit-for-tat attacks are throwing into doubt the fate of US-Iran negotiations that are supposed to lead to the settling of key issues such as the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and eventually bring an end to the war Washington and Israel began in late February. 

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“Iran made a poor choice,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said on social media. “Now they pay.”

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The IRGC said earlier Sunday it wouldn’t allow any vessels to transit the Hormuz strait until foreign interference ends, according to state-run IRIB News. 

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Control of the waterway — through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas once moved — has been central to US-Iran negotiations. The IRGC accused the US of seeking “to create disruption in the south of the Strait of Hormuz” by “instigating several vessels.”

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There was almost no visible traffic in the strait on Sunday. The maritime security threat “remains severe,” the multinational JMIC said in a note.

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Before the latest escalation, both the US and Iran had suggested there was still room for talks even as the rhetoric intensified.