THE US-IRAN truce threatened to collapse today after the US bombed Iranian boats and ports and Iran said it shot down a US Reaper drone in retaliation.

Though talks continued, yesterday through the mediation of Qatar, on a peace deal Iranian officials briefed that the bombings showed they were right to have “zero trust” in the US.

Washington said it bombed ships in “self-defence” and accused them of laying mines. It added that attacks in defence of its “assets” didn’t count as ceasefire violations.

Hawks in US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party are seeking to derail the deal — Senator Ted Cruz saying any end to the war that left the Iranian government in place and controlling the Strait of Hormuz would be a “disastrous mistake” on Saturday.

Israeli leaders are also pushing against a deal, a stance joined today by opposition leader Yair Lapid, who said rumoured peace terms were “bad for Israel, bad for the region, bad for the citizens of Iran.”

Israel shows no sign of slowing its assault on Lebanon, killing at least 11 in bombing raids today and ordering residents of the towns of Mashgara and Sahmar to flee pending imminent assault.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chaired a council of military chiefs to determine the next phase of its Lebanon war, which has already seen it kill thousands and carve out an exclusion zone along the border that displaces 300,000 people from their homes, which are being bulldozed.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council deputy secretary Ali Bagheri arrived in Moscow today for the International Security Forum, a summit at which about 120 countries are represented billed as discussing the threats of “neocolonialism and neonazism.” While the US and its allies across Europe as well as Canada and Japan will not be present, attendance is high across the Asian, African and Latin American continents.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, which praised Europe’s one-time “globe-spanning” empires and denounced decolonisation and communism, caused widespread alarm in the global South.

Mr Bagheri is due to address the summit on the Iran war and hold private talks with Russian military and intelligence chiefs.