US Vice-President Vance says Iran conflict not a war despite ongoing clashes

US Vice-President JD Vance says he would not categorise the Iran conflict as a war despite continuing clashes with Tehran.

Mr Vance's comments come amid signs that US President Donald Trump was trying to draw a line under the conflict that has bogged down his administration.

"I wouldn't call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting," Mr Vance told a White House briefing when asked if the war would be over by US midterm elections in November.

He said he recognised there "had been places where this has flared up", but said major combat operations only lasted for six weeks after the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

"But when you ask, 'When will this end?' you're asking me a question like, 'When will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?'" Mr Vance said.

"I think the reality is I don't know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians."

After several weeks of calm, fresh clashes began with US raids on Sunday, local time, deepening the impasse while Iran maintains its stranglehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran launched missiles and drones overnight at a US base in Kuwait following the war's biggest escalation in more than a month.

Kuwait's military said its air defences had intercepted missiles and drones, but following that, the war's biggest flare-up since July appeared to subside, with no more major attacks from either side reported since.

The US has more than 50,000 troops in the Middle East. The Trump administration has significantly increased assets into the region, including nearly 20 warships focused on a blockade.

In some instances, troops have been deployed for longer than expected and have been pulled from Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Mr Vance insisted the US would not reopen talks with Iran until it ended attacks on commercial ships.

But with fuel prices threatening to cost Republicans control of Congress, the Trump administration has been pushing the message that the flow of oil through the waterway is returning to prewar levels.

"Their control over the Strait of Hormuz is effectively gone," Mr Vance said of Iran.

"If you go back three months ago, how much oil and gas was coming out of the strait under Iranian threats? It was virtually nothing. Now it's almost back to where it was before the conflict even started."

Mr Trump's approval rating has sunk close to a record low as the president, who vowed to keep the United States out of any more foreign wars, finds himself in a quagmire.

Eighteen US troops and thousands of people in Iran and Lebanon have died in the conflict since February.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Trump was now discussing with senior aides whether to declare the Iran war over. Last week he posted a photo of a banner that said "Mission Accomplished".

Iran said on Thursday it hit US military bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, although the UAE reported no such attack, in retaliation to a strike on a wedding that it blamed on Washington.

Mr Vance said the United States was investigating the strike but cast doubt on Iranian reporting of the incident.

"We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know," he said.

"When our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them.

"I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what's happened in the conflict thus far, so I'm extremely sceptical of this."

US Central Command spokesman Tim Hawkins previously said the US military was looking into the reports.

On Thursday it was reported on Iranian state television that a 22-year-old woman had died in hospital following the strike that hit a home during the wedding, taking the total reported death toll to five.

Iranian officials said nearly 70 people were wounded.

Iranian state media broadcast footage of a funeral for the victims on Thursday, showing mourners carrying caskets and gathering outside the village of Kuhestak in Sirik County.

"If it was a military location, it wouldn't be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people's joy into mourning," the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local man as saying.